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Eng.ly JW.Paradise. 



IIUB11T MSmdDIRo 



Hartford , — Published l>y F. J . Huntingtoii,— 183 2. 



Hinted bv JLbnanA l'oj 



THE 



LIFE 



OF 



THE RIGHT REV. JEH. T^L^R, D.D. 

LORD BISHOP OF DOWN, CONNJ 



•R, AND DROMORE 



rdmore: 



A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF HIS WRITINGS. 



BY THE 



y 



RIGHT REV. REGINALD HEBER, D.D. 



LATE LORD BISHOP OF CALCUTTA* 




FIRST AMERICAN, FROM THE THIRD LONDON EDITION. 



HARTFORD: 

F. J. HUNTINGTON. 

1832. 







J. S. & C. ADAMS PRINTERS, AMHERST, MASS. 



f 



INTRODUCTION. 

For the republication of this work, no apology, it is 
presumed will be required. Deserving a place in the li- 
brary of every scholar and of every christian, its presen- 
tation in a neat form, and at a reasonable price, was sure- 
ly desirable. The subject and the author, alike give it 
value. The name of Jeremy Taylor, would alone be suf- 
ficient to secure its acceptance with the public. That 
name is consecrated to a deathless fame. It is identified 
with the interests of literature, eloquence and religion. 
While the knowledge of our language shall continue, his* 
writings will still have a distinguished place, delighting the 
antiquarian and the scholar by their " learned lore," the 
admirers of genius and taste, by their power of thought 
and beauties of style, and the Christian, by their rich, their 
golden vein of genuine piety. Of such a man, who has 
contributed so largely to the sum of intellectual enjoyment, 
and of moral benefit, the literary and the religious world 
will be anxious to learn every authentic particular. The 
most minute incidents in his life will not be devoid of in- 
terest. A faithful narrative from the pen of an humble, 
but faithful Biographer, would therefore have been valu- 
able. But we have here a richer treat. A master spir- 
it, is analyzed, by a kindred spirit. The sweet and 



IV 

gifted Heber, is the Biographer of the mighty and hon- 
oured Taylor. " Laudari a laudatis viris," to have post- 
humous reputation entrusted to the guardianship, and en- 
shrined by the praises, of the great and good, is among the 
highest incentives to living excellence, and yet one of the 
rare allotments of departed worth — It fell to the lot of 
Jeremy Taylor, when at length the Rector of Hodnet, 
the future Bishop of India, undertook the task of his Bi- 
ography. All that patient industry or active research 
could accomplish, in rescuing from oblivion the least re- 
markable periods and transactions of his busy and divers- 
ified life, in unravelling the tangled web of incident and 
in reconciling contradictory statements, was faithfully per- 
formed ; while a disciplined and discriminating mind pre- 
pared for the reader, a valuable analytical introduction, to 
writings always interesting and able, but occasionally con- 
fused and unguarded. Taylor lived in an eventful and 
troublous time — and like most other distinguished men 
whom the Providence of God has raised up, he was sin- 
gularly fitted for its peculiar exigencies. Still the aspect 
of the times, had an influence upon his writings, which 
Heber has most happily delineated — and the knowledge 
of which is essential to the just comprehension of his 
meaning. During a period of anarchy and confusion, an 
uncompromising advocate for that order whether in civil 
or religious concerns, without which liberty degenerates 
into licentiousness, and yet, on the other hand, in opposi- 
tion to tame unmanly submission to overstretched author- 
ity, daring to assert and occupy the just and middle 



ground between political tyranny and popular insubordin- 
ation, — between religious intolerance and persecution on 
the one side, and universal utter latitudinarianism on the 
other, it is not surprising that he should have been an ob- 
ject of suspicion to fhe two great rival parties of the day ; 
nor that his writings, alternately levelled against the one 
and the other, of the two faulty extremes, should some- 
times present seeming inconsistencies, and require a full 
knowledge of circumstances for their just explanation. 
Heber's penetration and research, enabled him to exe- 
cute his difficult and delicate task, with fidelity and suc- 
cess : and to present the public with a lucid statement of 
all the facts and circumstances which bear upon the ex- 
position of his author's character and meaning. His own 
ardent and brilliant imagination, gave him a keen relish 
for Taylor's glowing and varied imagery — while his refin- 
ed and exquisitely cultivated taste, enabled him to dis- 
cover and point out every shade of defect. 

The present was one of the most laboured essays of his 
gifted mind. It tended at once to confirm and realize the 
golden promise of his earlier, his collegiate years. It 
rendered him a decided favourite with the Publick — 
and prepared them to expect much from him, in the high 
vocation to which he was subsequently called. That the 
expectation was more than realized, need not be said. 
He who could so justly estimate the patient endurance, 
the willing sacrifices, the christian devotedness of the 
Irish Prelate, was admirably fitted to exemplify kindred 
gifts and graces in the more distant and not less trying 
Bishoprick of India. There "he made full proof of his 
1* 



VI 

ministry" — and there " his name will be had in everlasting 
rememberance." To the work now offered, as to all that 
came from his ready and chastened pen, his early and la- 
mented fate affixes a peculiar and melancholy interest 
In it, " being dead, he yet speaketh" — and what he 
saith seems the more worthy of regard, because we " shall 
see his face" and hear his words no more. The writings of 
Taylor, deserve to be understandingly read. Happy is 
he, who can read them with the analysis and the com- 
ment of a Heber. The work and the review, the Text 

and the illustration alike are valuable- 

H. 3. 
Hartford, Oct, 1832. 



INDEX. 



A 

Abraham and the idolatrous traveller, origin of the story of, 2:29. 

Advent (Second) of Christ, sublime description of, by Bishop Taylor, 
17*2, 173. Strong- resemblance between it and a passage in Mr. Sou- 
they's 'Curse of Kehama, 5 173. 

All Souls' 'College (Oxford,) Jeremy Taylor recommended to the fel- 
lows of, for a vacant fellowship, by Archbishop Laud, 21, 23, 329, who 
finally nominates him a fellow, by virtue of his visatorial powers, 22, 
23. Copy of the nomination,- 329. 

Allegorizing of the Fathers, remarks on, 178, 179. Singular speci- 
mens of, 365. 

Ancestors of Bishop Taylor, notices of, 12, 327. 

1 Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Ldturgy? published by 
Bishop Taylor, 46. 

Aquinas (Thoma3,) Specimen of the scholastic subtleties of, 346. 

Armorial Bearings of Bishop Taylor, 14, 327- 

1 Artificial Handsomeness,' the Treatise on, usually ascribed to Jeremy 
Taylor, proved not to be written by him, 71 — 74. Was probably 
written by Mrs. Catherine Philips, 75, 

B 

Bridges (Mrs. Joanna,) a natural daughter of Prince [afterwards King] 
Charles I., married to Jeremy Taylor, 44. 



Carbery (Sir Richard Vaughan, Earl of,) notice of, and of his family, 
45. Patronizes Jeremy Taylor, 45. 

Carbery (Frances, first Countes3 of,) notice of,) 45. 

Carbery (Alice, second Countess of,) notice of, 45. 

Charles I. (King) joined by Jeremy Taylor, 29. Commands him to 
write his ' Episcopacy Asserted,' ibid. Issues a mandate for confer- 
ring the degree of D.D. on him, ibid. Remonstrances of the head3 
of houses against the numerous degrees ordered by the king to be 
conferred, 331. A natural daughter of the king (when Prince of 
Wales) married by Jeremy Taylor, 44. Taylor's last interview with 
the king, 35. Description of the watch given him by the king, 361. 

* Christian Consolations ■,' analysis of, with remarks, 173 — 176. 

Clergy notice of Bishop Taylor's Rules and advices to, 316. 

Confirmation, analysis of Bishop Taylor's discourse on, with extracts 
and remarks, 277 — 281. 

Conscience, remarks on, 293 — 295. 

1 Contemplations on the State of Manf remarks on the style and com- 
position of, with extracts, 169 — 174. 

Contracts, observations on the fulfilment of, 299. 

Conway (Edward, Earl of,) patronize and provides for Jeremy Taylor, 
y4, «/7, o'tit 



Vlll INDEX. 

Cromwell (Oliver,) duplicity of his conduct towards the orthodox epis- 
copal clergy, 325. Why he oppressed theni, 93, 94. 

D 

Davenport (John, alias Francis a Sancta Clara,) biographical notice of, 
24 — 26. Remarks on Jeremy Taylor's friendship for him, 25. Arch- 
bishop Laud's account of his interview with him, 330. 

c Dissuasive from Popery? published by Bishop Taylor, 134. Origin 
of, and motive to his undertaking* this work, 134 — 139. Analysis of 
it, with extracts and remarks, 264 — 268. 

Domestic happiness, beautiful reflections of Jeremy Taylor on, 75, 76. 

Drummond (Rev. Dr. Hay,) verses of, on Dr. Rowland Taylor, 328. 

c Duct or Dubitantium? published by Jeremy Taylor, 111. Its compar- 
ative unpopularity accounted for, ibid. Motives which probably in- 
duced him to undertake this treatise, 287 — 289. Outline of its plan 
and contents, with extracts and remarks, 290 — 314. Observations on 
its style, 314, 315. 

E 

1 Episcopacy Asserted? this tract written by Jeremy Taylor at the re- 
quest of King* Charles I., 29. Analysis of it, with extracts and re- 
marks, 199—208. 

Epitaph of Bishop Nicholson, 332. Of Griffin Lloyd, 333. Of Mr. 
Justice Powell, ibid. 

Evelyn (John, Esq.) patronizes Jeremy Taylor, 45, 49, 337, 338. Let- 
ters of, to Taylor, 337, 338, 339. Letters to Evelyn by Bishop Tay- 
lor, 54, 59, 63, 65, 67, 68, 79, 80, 81, 91, 95, 99, 101, 107, 109, 125. 
Procures his liberation from the Tower, 95. Remarks on the termi- 
nation of their correspondence, 126. 

F 

Felicity of the Saints, Bishop Taylor's sentiments on, 82. Remarks 

thereon, 86. 
Finch (Francis, Esq.) biographical notice of, 247. 
Finch (Lady Anne,) biographical notice of, 174, 363. 
Francis a Sancta Clara. See Davenport (John.) 
Friendship, analysis of Bishop Taylor's treatise on, with extracts and 

remarks, 281—287. 

G 

Ghosts, account of supposed appearances of, 127, 128, 352. 

' Golden Grove? analysis of, with remarks, 316, 318. 

' Great Exemplar.' See ' Life of Christ.* 

Gunpowder Treason, remarks on Bishop Taylor's sermon on, 180 — 187. 

H 

Harrison (Edward, son-in-law of Bishop Taylor,) 140. Notices of his 
children, Michael Harrison, 359. Jeremiah Taylor Harrison, 359. 
Francis Harrison, ibid. Marsh Harrison, ibid, Mary Harrison and 
her descendants, 360. 

Hatton (Christopher, Esq.) patronizes Jeremy Taylor, 30. Remarks on 
his character, 30, 331. 

1 Holy Living? analysis of Bishop Taylor's treatise on, 159 — 162. Re- 
marks on some of the .prayers contained in it, 163, 164. Five rules for 
reading- this treatise to advantage 157, 158. 

* Holy Dying? extracts from Bishop Taylor's dedication, 164 — 168. Ob- 
servations on its style, 169, 170. 



INDEX. IX 

Hunter (David,) account of the supposed appearance of a ghost to, 127, 

352. 
Hymns of Bishop Taylor, specimens of with remarks, 318. 

I 

Immortality of the Soul, why not insisted upon by St Paul, in his dis- 
course to the Athenians, 82. 

Intermarriages qf kindred, mistake of Bishop Taylor concerning-, cor- 
rected, 360. 

Ireland, miserable state of, in 1664, 135 — 139. 

Jeanes, (Henry,) biographical notice of, 87. Account of his controversy 
with Jeremy Taylor, on the subject of Original Sin, 88, 89. 

Jones, (William Todd, Esq.,) biographical notice of, 10, 360. Notice of 
his collections for a Life of Bishop Taylor, 11. 

L 

Langsdale, (Phcebe,) married to Jeremy Taylor, 28. Her children, ibid. 

Langsdale, (Dr.,) Letter of Bishop Taylor to, 31. 

Laud, (William, Archbishop of Canterbury) patronizes Jeremy Taylor: 
21, 22. Recommends him to be chosen Fellow of All Souls' College, 
Oxford, 21, 22, 329. And finally nominates him, as the Visitor of that 
Colleg'e, 21. Copy of the Archbishop's nomination, 330. Laud's ac- 
count of his interviews with Friar John Davenport, 330. 

Laws (Human,) Observations on the Interpretation of, 311 — 320. 

Letters from Bishop Taylor to Dr. Langsdale, 31. To John Evelyn, see 
Evelyn. To Bishop Warner, 54. To Dr. Sheldon, 61. To Professor 
Stearne, 106. Of Archbishop Laud, 329. Of John Evelyn to Bishop 
Taylor, see Evelyn. And to the Lieutenant of the Tower in behalf of 
Taylor, 345. 

' Liberty of Prophesying? published by Jeremy Taylor, 37. Remarks 
thereon, 37. This treatise attacked by Samuel Rutherford, 40, 334. 
Bishop Taylor's motives in writing it vindicated from the unjust cen- 
sures of Mr. Orme, 40 — 42. Analysis of this treatise, with extracts 
and remarks, 220 — 238. 

{ Life of Christ, or the Great Exemplar? publication of, 46. Remarks 
on its triple dedications, 48. Remarks on its design, plan, and exe- 
cution, 147 — 155. It is not a translation from the Latin Harmony of 
Ludolphus de Saxonia, 156. On its style, 156. 

Liturgy, Bishop Taylor's Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of, 
published, 46. Analysis of it, with extracts and remarks, 208. 

Lloyd (Griffin, Esq.,) a pupil of Bishops Taylor and Nicholson, 36. Ep- 
itaph on, 333. 

Ludolphus de Saxonia, notice of the Harmony of, 156. 

M 

Marsh (Dr. Francis, Archbishop of Dublin,) marries a daughter of Bish- 
op Taylor, 141. Notice of some of his descendents, 359. 

Marsh (Rev. Digby,) character of 359. 

Mather (Increase,) animadversion of, on Bishop Taylor's propounding 
certain questions to be asked of a supposed ghost, 354. Remarks 
thereon, 355. 

Milton, diatribe of, against the enemies of liberty of conscience, 333. 

Ministerial Duty and Doctrine, remarks on Bishop Taylor's two dis- 
courses on, 193. Notice of his • Divine Institution and Necessity of 
the Office Ministerial, 1 315. Andofhi3 'Rules and Advices to the 
Clergy, 316. 



INDEX. 



N 



Nicholson (William, Bishop of Gloucester,) keeps school jointly with 
Jeremy Taylor, 35. Biographical notice of him, 332. Bishop Bull's 
epitaph on him, 332. 

O 

Offices, remarks on Bishop Taylor's collection of, 319. 

Origianl Sin, Bishop Taylor's observations on, analyzed, with remarks, 

243. 
Orme (Mr.,) censures of, on Bishop c Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying,' 

examined and refuted, 40, 42. 



Perfectionists, notice of the sect of, 88, 344. 

Philips (Mrs. Catherine,) the probable author of the treatise on c Arti- 
ficial Handsomeness,' 75. Notice of her, 90. 

Piers or Pierce (Thomas,) biographical notice of, 339 

Powell (Sir John) a pupil of Bishops Taylor and Nicholson, 36. His 
Epitaph, 333. 

Preachers, remarks on the defective style and composition of, in the 
time of Bishop Taylor, 178. 

R 

c Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, 1 analysis of this treatise of 
Bishop Taylo'r's, 251 — 260. Observations on its style, 261, 262. 

Repentance, analysis of Bishop Taylor's treatise on the doctrine of, with 
extracts and remarks, 238. 

Rust (Doctor George, afterwards Bishop of Dromore,) invited to Ire- 
land by Bishop Taylor, 126. Whose funeral sermon he preaches, 140. 

Rutherford, (Samuel,) attacks Jeremy Taylor's 'Liberty of Prophesy- 
ing, 5 40. Notice of his extraordinary defence of persecution, 334. 

S 

Sermons, remarks on the defective style and composition of, prevalent 
in the time of Bishop Taylor, 178. Critical remarks on his sermon 
on the Gunpowder Treason, 179, 180. On his sermons on the Minis- 
ter's Duty in Life and Doctrine, 193. 

Sizars, remarks on the situation of, at Cambridge, 16. 

Stearne (Dr. John,) Letter of Dr. Taylor to, 106. Appointed a Fellow 
of Trinity College, Dublin, 115. 

T 

Taverner (Francis,) account of the supposed appearance of an appari- 
tion to, 127, 352. 

Taylor (Jeremy,) Biographical notices of the ancestors of, 9, 327. The 
family arms of, 14, 327. Baptismal register of his family, 327. His 
birth, 9, 327. His early education, 15. Admitted a sizar at Caius 
College, Cambridge, 16, 328. Remarks on his studies there, 15. 
Takes holy orders, 19, 20. Preaches at St. Paul's, ibid. And at 
Lambeth, before Archbishop Laud, who patronizes him, ibid. Is ad- 
mitted Master of Arts of University College, Oxford, 19, 20. Is rec- 
ommended by Archbishop Laud to be chosen Fellow of All Soul' Col- 
lege, 21 ,329. But was nominated by the Archbishop, as Visitor of 
the College, 22, 329, and admitted Fellow, 330. Appointed Rector of 
Uppingham, 23. Remarks on his acquaintance with Francis a Sancta 
Clara (John Davenport,) 24, 26. Marries Phcebe Langsdale, 28. His 



INDEX. XI 

children by her, ibid. Writes his 'Episcopacy Asserted,' at the re- 
quest of King- Charles I., ibid; by whose mandate he is created D.D., 
ibid, Jeremy Taylor ejected from his rectory by the Presbyterians, 
29. Patronized by Christopher Hatton, Esq., 31. His pecuniary dif- 
ficulties during the civil wars, 31, 331. Is taken prisoner by the par- 
liamentary troops in Wales, 32. Publishes his ' Psalter of David, 
with Titles and Collects,' 24, 332. Is released from captivity, 35. 
Takes leave of King- Charles L, ibid. Keeps a school for his support, 
with William Nicholson (afterwards bishop of Gloucester,) and Wil- 
liam Wyat, 35, 333. Writes a dedication to Wyat's 'New and Easy 
Institution of Grammar,' 36. Publishes his ' Liberty of Prophesy- 
ing*,' 37 ; which is attacked by Samuel Rutherford, 40, 335. Vindi- 
cation of Taylor from the unjust censures of Mr. Orme, 40. Mar- 
riage of Jeremy Taylor with a natural daughter of Prince Charles 
(afterwards King Charles I.,) 44. He is patronized by the Earl of 
Carbery, 45. Publishes the ( Apology for Authorized and Set Forms 
of Liturgy,' 46, and his ' Life of Christ,' ibid. Publishes Sermons 
and other Tracts, 48. Is a second time imprisoned, 51, and, it should 
seem, a third time, 51, 339. Remarks on this imprisonment, 51. 
Completes his Sermons, and publishes his ' Unum Necessarium,' or 
Treatise on Repentance ; 51, which is attacked by various persons, 
52. His letter to Bishop Warner, 54. Is liberated from prison, 55, 
and visits London, 62. Returns to Wales, 65 ; and publishes his 
c Deus Justificatus,' ibid. The Trsatise on ' Artificial Handsomeness, 
not written by Taylor, 74. Reflections of Dr. Taylor on the death of 
two of his children, 75. Revisits London, and shews the manuscript 
of his c Ductor Dubitantium' to Mr. Evelyn, 89. Account of Dr. 
Taylor's Controversy with Henry Jeanes on the doctrine of Original 
Sin, 87. Republishes several of his former pieces, with the addition 
of an Essay on Friendship, 88. Is imprisoned in the Tower of Lon- 
don, 90 ; but liberated through the influence of Evelyn, ibid. 345. 
Consoles Evelyn on the death of two sons, 91. Is patronized and 
provided for by Edward, Earl of Conway, 94. Settles in Ireland, 
94 ; where he is falsely denounced to the Privy Council, 101 ; and 
summoned to Dublin, 105, 350. Calumniated, as being disposed to 
return to popery, 105. Revisits London, and signs a Declaration of 
Loyalty to Charles II., 111. Publishes the 'Ductor Dubitantium,' 
ibid, and some other pieces, 113. Nominated Bishop of Down and 
Connor, 114. Elected Vice chancellor of the University of Dublin, 
ibid. His labours there, 115 ; and in his diocese, ibid. Remarks on 
the ecclesiastical measures adopted in Ireland, ibid. Consecration of 
Bishop Taylor, 119, The administration of the see of Dromore con- 
fided to him, ibid. Zealous efforts of Taylor to reconcile the Cove- 
nanters, ibid. His success in bringing over to the Church the nobil- 
ity and gentry of the three dioceses, 120. Remarks on his conduct 
at this crisis, and on his Sermon before the Irish Parliament, 120. 
Termination of his friendship with Evelyn, 126. Munificence of 
Bishop Taylor and his Lady to the Cathedral Church of Dromore, 
126. Publishes his ' Via Intelligentia;,' also his XqiOig TtlsiuTixtj, 
a Discourse on Confirmation, 134; and his 'Dissuasive from Po- 
pery,' ibid. Personal and domestic afflictions of Bishop Taylor, 
140, 357. His death 140. Description of his person, 141. Notices 
of some of his descendants, 141. His amiable character, 143. His 
munificent charity, 145. Description of the watch given by Charles 
I. to Bishop Taylor, 361. Notice of a law-suit in which Bishop Tay- 
lor was engaged towards the close of his life, 145, 361. Classifica- 
tion of his works, 146. Analysis of his practical works with re- 



Xll INDEX. 

marks, _ 147—199. Of his theological works, 199—281. Of his 
casuistical works, 281 — 319 ; and of his devotional works, 319. 
General estimate of the literary character of Bishop Taylor, 325. 

Taylor (Dr. Rowland,) a martyr for the Protestant religion, biographic- 
al notices of, 12, 14, 327. Poetical inscription to his memory, 328. 
His character, 13. 

Taylor (Charles, third son of Bishop Taylor,) notice of, 140. 

Taylor (Joanna, daughter of Bishop Taylor,) notices of, and of her de- 
scendants, 360. 

Transubstantiation, the Romish doctrine of, not found in Scripture, 
252. When introduced by the Romish church as an article of faith, 
259. 

U 

* Unum Necessarium ;' or, Treatise on Repentance, publication of, 51. 
It is attacked by various persons, 52. Correspondence of Jeremy 
Taylor on this subject, 53, 54. Analysis of this treatise, with extracts 
and remarks, 238. 

Uppingham, rectory of, conferred on Jeremy Taylor, 22. Sequestered 
from him by the Presbyterians, 29 ; without any part of the emolu- 
ments being given to him, 31. 

V 

Vaughan (Sir Richard,) See Carbery. 

1 Via Intelligentta?,' a Sermon, published by Bishop Taylor, 129. Re- 
marks thereon, with extracts, 130. 

W 

Warner (John, Bishop of Rochester,) correspondence of Jeremy Tay- 
lor with, on the subject of his ' Unum Necessarium, 5 54. 

Watch given by King Charles I. to Bishop Taylor, description of, 143, 
361. 

* Worthy Communicant* of Bishop Taylor, notice of, 316. 

Wyat (William) keeps school jointly with Bishop Taylor, 36 j who writes 
a Dedication to his 'New and Easy Institution of Latin Grammar,* 
36. Biographical notice of him, 333. 



THE 

LIFE 



JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 



ETC. ETC. 



The life of a student is passed within a narrow circle ; 
and of the men whose writings are most widely read and 
admired, the personal history is often enveloped in the 
deepest obscurity. Nor even of those individuals, whom 
the zeal of their friends, or the malice of their enemies, 
have enabled or compelled to acta more conspicuous part 
on the theatre of contemporary distinction, have the lives 
been often diversified with many singular events, with great 
deliverances, or surprising vicissitudes. Their days have 
been quietly busied in producing those effects which only 
have made their histories worth inquiring after, — effects 
for which it was necessary that their habits should be re- 
tired and uniform. Nor can we wonder, therefore, that 
whoever undertakes the biography of a scholar or a theo- 
logian, has ordinarily but little to relate which is certain, 
and less which is interesting or extraordinary. 

In some respects, indeed, the fate of Jeremy taylor 
was distinguished from the general lot of men of letters. 
So far from his life being retired or monotonous, he seems 
to have passed much of it in a crowd ; and it is one of 
the circumstances which lead us most to wonder at the 
fertility and force of his genius, not only that, in so few 
years, he wrote so many books, but that these books 
w r ere, many of them, composed under circumstances the 
least favourable to research or abstraction. 
2 



10 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

It was his fortune, at an early age to attract the notice 
of those whose patronage, however favourable to his in- 
terests or his renown, had a natural tendency to withdraw 
him from the usual scenes of literary or parochial labour. 
He was favoured by Laud in the zenith of his power, and 
trusted by king Charles, when he had become the more 
venerable from adversity. During the usurpation, though 
esteemed and pitied even by his enemies, he was destined 
to encounter a more than usual share of confiscation and 
imprisonment ; and, at the restoration of the royal family 
and while yet in the full vigour of his years and his abili- 
ties, he was raised to the highest honours which lie within 
the compass of his profession. But during the calamities 
which agitated an empire, the escapes and sufferings of a 
private individual were too insignificant to attract much 
contemporary fame ; and Taylor's sufferings were of the 
kind which, by impoverishing their victim, removes him 
still more from the notice and knowledge of the world. 
His subsequent promotion, though it fixed him in the 
country where he had found his best asylum, was, in it- 
self a banishment from the society of public men and 
the theatre of national politics; and his latter days were 
spent in the alternate and unobtrusive labours of the pul- 
pit and the closet, in preparing himself and others for that 
heaven, whither his desires had been from his earliest 
years directed 

It will not, then, be expected, that after the lapse of 
almost two centuries, I shall have been able to supply 
many interesting details of a life thus spent and thus con- 
cluded, or that many important gleanings remain, which 
had escaped the almost contemporary inquiries of Wood, 
or the accurate industry and zealous researches of Mr. 
Bonney. Yet the time is not long passed, since unusu- 
ally abundant stores of information existed, and since 
those stores were in the possession of a person eminently 
qualified to employ them to the best advantage. The 
late William Todd Jones, of Homra, in the county of 
Down, esquire, Taylor's lineal descendant in the fifth de- 
gree, and who inherited no small portion of his talents 



LIEE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 11 

and characteristic eloquence, was employed, at one peri- 
od of his life, in collecting and arranging materials for the 
biography of his distinguished ancestor. Mr. Jones pos- 
sessed, among many other interesting documents, a series 
of autograph letters to and from the bishop ; and a " fam- 
ily-book," also in his own hand-writing, giving an account 
of his parentage and the principal events of his life, which 
comments on many of the public transactions in which he 
himself, or those connected with him had borne a share. 

But, in the ardour of Mr. Jones's political pursuits, and 
the frequent pecuniary embarrassments to which those 
pursuits exposed him, his biographical labours appear to 
have been often interrupted ; and his sudden death, by 
the overturn of a carriage in the year 1818, cut short all 
the hopes which his talents and his materials justified. 
The greater part of his family papers he had, on the sale 
of Homra to the Marquess of Downshire, deposited at 
Montalto, under the care of the late John, earl of Moira. 
Their subsequent fate has, unfortunately, not been ascer- 
tained. At Donnington, whither all the papers found at 
Montalto are said to have been transferred, no traces of 
them remain ; and there appears tut too much reason to 
apprehend that they were consumed, together with some 
other packages belonging to the marquess of Hastings, in 
the fire w T hich destroyed the London Custom House. 
All which the family yet retain, consists of some extracts 
made by Mr. Jones from these documents with a view to 
his intended work ; the marriage settlement of Taylor's 
youngest daughter ; and some traditions respecting him- 
self and his descendants, which have been liberally com- 
municated to me by Mr. Jones's sisters, Mrs. Wray, and 
Mrs. Mary Jones. 

Small as these remains are, the few facts which they 
disclose are, perhaps, among the most interesting hitherto 
recovered concerning bishop Taylor's private concerns. 
From other quarters, indeed, very little was to be gathered 
which was new, but I have not knowingly neglected any. 
The Rev. Mr. Bonney,with a kindness to which I am deep- 
ly indebted, and which I had the less reason to expect, 



12 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

as I was personally unknown to him, has permitted me to 
make use of an interleaved copy of his able and interest- 
ing Life of Taylor,enriched with many valuable manuscript 
notes and references^ To the active and judicious friend- 
ship of the Hon. and Rev. J. C. Talbot, I am indebted, not 
only for my introduction to bishop Taylor's descendants in 
Ireland, but for whatever other gleanings of information or 
tradition respecting him remained in that kingdom. The 
archives of All Souls were examined by the kindness of 
the bishop of Oxford, and my friend, Clement Cartwright, 
Esq. : and the publishers of this edition have been ena- 
bled to procure for me, from the Evelyn Papers, the 
British Museum, and other sources, seventeen manuscirpt 
letters of Taylor, fourteen of which are now first printed. 
But it cannot be concealed, that notwithstanding these ad- 
vantages, I have still to lament the scantiness and imper- 
fection of my materials ; and that in this, as in most oth- 
er instances, the biography of an author must consist in 
the account of his writings rather than his actions or ad- 
ventures. 

Jeremy, third son of Nathaniel and Mary Taylor,* 
was born in Trinity parish, Cambridge, and baptized on 
the 15th of August, 1613. His father was a barber; an 
occupation which, united, as it generally was, with the 
practice of surgery and pharmacy, was, in the days of 
our ancestors, somewhat less humble than at present, but 
which was at no time likely to raise its professor or his 
children to wealth or eminence. The family, however, 
had originally held a respectable rank among the smaller 
gentry of Gloucestershire, where they had possessed, for 
many generations, an estate in the parish of Frampton on 
Severn ; and Nathaniel was the lineal descendant of Dr. 
Rowland Taylor, rector of Hadleigh, in the county of 
Suffolk, and chaplain to archbishop Cranmer. 

Of Rowland Taylor, neither the name nor the misfor- 
tunes are obscure. He was distinguished among the di- 
vines of the Reformation for his abilities, his learning, and 

* See Note A, 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 13 

piety : and he suffered death at the stake on Aldham 
Common, near Hadleigh, in the third year of queen Mary, 
amid the blessings and lamentations of his parishioners, 
and with a courageous and kindly cheerfulness, which 
has scarcely its parallel even in those days of religious 
heroism. 

Dr. Taylor was of sufficient consequence, as an advo- 
cate of the new religion, to have excited against himself, 
without any additional or private motives, the fiercest hos- 
tility of the Romish prelates. We are told, however, 
that Gardiner, by whose warrent, as lord chancellor, he 
was first apprehended, w T as stimulated in this instance by 
feelings of avarice, as well as bigotry ; that he w^as desir- 
ous of appropriating to himself the family estate at Framp- 
ton ; that, I know not on what pretence, he succeeded in 
his object after Dr. Taylor's death, and that he had be- 
gun to build a mansion on the property, which, at his own 
decease, he left unfinished. 

The family of the martyr were thus reduced to pover- 
ty, from which they had the less prospect of emerging by 
any help or favour of government, inasmuch as, in com- 
mon with many of those who had most severely felt the 
iron hand of the Romish hierarchy, they were suspected, 
during the reign of Elizabeth and James the First, of an 
inclination to the rising sect of the Puritans. Yet their 
poverty cannot have been excessive, since we find Na- 
thaniel Taylor serving as churchwarden ; an office which, 
in most parishes, is filled by the wealthiest and most re- 
spectable in the middle ranks of life. And it may be 
mentioned to their honour, that, after two generations of 
comparative distress, the father of Jeremy Taylor was 
spoken of by his son, in a letter to his old tutor, Bach- 
croft, as " reasonably learned," and as having himself 
" solely grounded his children in grammar and the math- 
ematics." 

I have already taken notice of the unfortunate loss of 
the documents on which this account chiefly depends. 
For the fact of their having once existed, the authority 
of Mr. Jones is sufficient ; and thousch the testimony of 

2* 



14 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

Lady Wray is exposed to that degree of doubt which al- 
most always attaches to family tradition, it is as satisfac- 
tory a voucher as could be looked for under similar cir- 
cumstances, and more than sufficient to obtain belief for 
an account which, in itself, is far from improbable. That 
Jeremy Taylor had, indeed, some pretensions to gentle 
blood, may be, to a certain extent, inferred from the ar- 
morial bearings which, in an age when such distinctions 
were less boldly assumed than at present, and when the 
Heralds' College still retained some vestiges of their an- 
cient authority, were engraved on his seal, still preserved 
by the Marsh family, and which (with some degree of 
harmless ostentation) are almost uniformly appended to 
his portraits. # In his works nothing occurs which can 
either confirm or disprove the traditions of his descend- 
ants ; though he speaks of Rowland Taylor with deserv- 
ed commendation in one of his polemical writings, and 
appeals to his authority in behalf of the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer with something like a filial fondness. I am 
aware, indeed, that the question is, after all, of no great 
importance, and that the character of bishop Taylor could 
derive no additional lustre from a pedigree far more dis- 
tinguished than that which I have assigned him. But the 
natural prejudices of mankind inclined them to attach a 
certain degree of weight to the inheritance of talents and 
virtues ; and I was not sorry to discover, that the author 
of the Liberty of Prophesying was a descendant of one 
whose character and sufferings I had long been accustom- 
ed to contemplate with veneration. 

There is nothing, indeed, more beautiful in the whole 
beautiful Book of Martyrs, than the account which Fox 
has given of Rowland Taylor, whether in the discharge 
of his duty as a parish priest, or in the more arduous 
moments when he was called on to bear his cross in the 
cause of religion. His warmth of heart, his simplicity 
of manners, the total absence of the false stimulants of 
enthusiasm or pride, and the abundant overflow of better 

* Note B. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 15 

and holier feelings, are delineated, no less than his cour- 
age in death, and the buoyant cheerfulness with which 
he encountered it, with a spirit only inferior to the elo- 
quence and dignity of the Phcedon. Something, indeed, 
must be allowed for the manners of the age, before we 
can be reconciled to the coarse vigour of his pleasantry, 
his jocose menance to Bonner, and his jests with the 
sheriff on his own stature and corpulency. But nothing 
can be more delightfully told than his refusal to fly from 
the lord chancellor's officers ; his dignified, yet modest 
determination to await death in the discharge of his duty ; 
and his affectionate and courageous parting with his wife 
and children. His recollection, when led to the stake, of 
" the blind man and woman," his pensioners, is of the 
same delightful character ; nor has Plato any thing more 
touching than the lamentation of his parishioners over his 
dishonoured head and long white beard, and his own 
meek rebuke to the wretch who drew blood from that 
venerable countenance. Let not my readers blame me 
for this digression. They will have cause to thank me, 
if it induces them to refer to a history, w r hich few men 
have ever read without its making them " sadder and 
better."* 

At three years of age, Jeremy Taylor is said to have 
been sent to the grammar school then recently founded 
in Cambridge under the will of Dr. Stephen Perse, and 
kept by one Lovering. The profit, however, which he 
derived from Lovering's instructions cannot have been 
great, if, as Taylor himself wrote to the head of Caius, 
he was " solely grounded in grammar and mathematics" 
by his father. And it is so unusual a thing in his class of 
life, or, indeed, in any class, to send an infant of three 
years old to a public grammar school, that I am tempted 
exceedingly to doubt a fact which rests on a single, and, 
as it appears in another instance, an inaccurate memo- 
randum in the admission book of Caius. If, which is 
certainly not improbable, he attended Lovering's school 

♦ Note G. ' 



16 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

at all he can hardly have remained at it so long as he is 
there stated to have done.* 

When thirteen years old, on the 18th of August, 1626, 
he was entered at Caius College as a sizar, or poor 
scholar ; an order of students who then were what the 
" servitors" still continue to be in some colleges in Ox- 
ford, and what the " lay brethren" are in the convents of 
the Romish church. This was an institution which, 
however it may be now at variance with the feelings and 
manners of the world, was, in its original, very far from 
deserving the reprobation which has been sometimes cast 
on it, and owed, indeed, its beginning to a zeal for the 
education of the poor, as well directed as it was humane 
and Christian. In the time of our ancestors, the interval 
between the domestics and the other members of a fam- 
ily was by no means so great, nor fenced with so harsh 
and impenetrable a barrier, as in the present days of lux- 
ury and excessive refinement. As the highest rank of 
subjects was elevated then at a greater height than they 
now are above the most considerable private gentry, so 
the latter constituted a far more efficient link in the great 
chain of society, and a far easier gradation existed be- 
tween the nobles and that class of men from whom their 
own domestics were taken. There was, in those days, 
no supposed humiliation in offices which are now account- 
ed menial, but which the peer then received as a matter 
of course from " the gentlemen of his household ;" and 
which were paid to the knight or gentleman by domestics 
chosen in the families of his own most respectable ten- 
ants ; while, in the humbler ranks of middle life, it was the 
uniform and recognised duty of the wife to wait on her hus- 
band, the child on his parents,the youngest of the family on 
his elder brothers or sisters. f But while the subordination 
of service was thus perfect and universal, this very univer- 
sality softened its rigours. The well-born and well-educa- 
ted retainers of a noble family were admitted by its head to 

* Note D. t Note E. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 



17 



that confidence and familiarity which their rank and at- 
tainments justified. The servants of the manor-house 
were usually the humble friends of the master and mis- 
tress, whose playmates they had been during childhood, 
and under whose protection they hoped to grow old. 
We have been, most of us, impressed with the tone of 
equality assumed by the valets of the old French come- 
dy ; and the jovial familiarity of Furnace, Amble, and 
Order, in Massinger's "New Way to pay Old Debts," 
is a well known, and, probably, an accurate portrait, 
of that species of graduated intercourse which once con- 
nected the aristocracy, and the throne itself, with the 
humblest orders of society, and in the abolition of which 
it may be reasonably doubted whether all parties are not 
rather losers than gainers. 

But it is evident, that, as with such habits and feelings 
the mere fact of servitude did not in itself degrade, so 
there was nothing to prevent well-educated youths from at- 
tending their richer neighbours in a menial capacity to Ox- 
ford or Cambridge ; while there was every possible motive 
of w T isdom and humanity to induce the founders and gov- 
ernors of colleges to admit young men thus situated to a 
share in the instruction afforded by the place, and in the 
rewards which were held out to the genius or diligence of 
other scholars. It is easy to declaim against the indeco- 
rum and illiberality of depressing the poorer students into 
servants ; but it would be more candid, and more con- 
sistent with truth, to say that our ancestors elevated their 
servants to the rank of students ; softening, as much as 
possible, every invidious distinction, and rendering the 
convenience of the wealthy a means of extending the 
benefits of education to those whose poverty must other- 
wise have shut them out from the springs of knowledge. 
And the very distinction of dress, which has been so of- 
ten complained of, — the very nature of those duties which 
have been esteemed degrading, — were of use in prevent- 
ing the intrusion of the higher classes into situations in- 
tended only for the benefit of the poor ; while, by sepa- 
rating these last from the familiar society of the wealthier 



18 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

students, they prevented that dangerous emulation of ex- 
pense, which has, in more modern times, almost excluded 
them from the university. The institution is now fading 
fast away; and, even where it exists, is altered from its 
original character. But the difficulties are proportionately 
increased which oppose the rise of such men as Taylor 
from the lowest to the highest ranks of society ; and the 
want of such a frugal and humble order of students is 
already felt by the church of England, as it eventually 
may be felt by the nation at large. 

At the time of Taylor's entrance at college, he had 
already, as I have observed, been introduced by his father 
to an elementary knowledge of the mathematics. Then, 
as now, if Glanville be believed, (who, with all his vora- 
cious credulity, both Platonic, chymical, and spectral, was 
no inconsiderable person among the scholars and philoso- 
phers of the seventeenth century,) a knowledge of the 
exact sciences was that by which Cambridge w T as chiefly 
distinguished, and the surest avenue through which her 
honours and emoluments were accessible. 

But no evidence remains that Taylor pursued the 
mathematics to any considerable length, or that he made 
any progress in that new method of philosophising, to 
which the world has since heen so greatly indebted. Mr. 
Bonney, indeed, apprehends that many of his peculiar 
merits as a writer may be traced to an acquaintance with 
Bacon's illustrious treatise on " the Advancement of 
Knowledge." That he had read Bacon I can well be- 
lieve ; for with what work of contemporary genius was 
Jeremy Taylor likely to be unacquainted ? But, though 
there are abundant proofs in his writings of that familiar- 
ity with the Aristotelic logic which Lloyd ascribes to him, 
I have not been able to discover a single allusion to those 
principles which Bacon first laid down, and on which alone 
the discovery of any new r truth is possible. The powers 
of Taylors mind were not devoted to the investigation of 
fresh fields of science, or to enlarge the compass of the 
human intellect, by ascertaining its legitimate boundaries. 
He was busied through life in defending truths already 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, B . D . 19 

received, or in clearing away errors by which those an- 
cient truths had been disfigured. His philosophy was 
almost entirely casuistical. They were not falsehoods, 
but fallacious reasonings, against which he had to contend ; 
and for this species of dialect warfare his weapons w T ere 
to be sought after, not in the new, but in the ancient 
organon, and among the elder divines and schoolmen. 
It is no disparagement to Bacon, nor is it inconsistent with 
the admiration which Taylor may well have felt for him, 
that he did not apply Bacon's discoveries to an use for 
which Bacon himself did not intend them. 

Whether he received any emolument or honorary dis- 
tinction from Cambridge, is doubtful. Rust, his friend, 
and, though not his contemporary, educated at the same 
university, asserts, that after taking his degree of bach- 
elor of arts in the year 1630-1, he was chosen fellow of 
Caius College. But we learn from Mr. Bonney, that no 
evidence of this fact exists (where, if true, it surely must 
have been recorded) in the archives of the college and 
the university. And a further reason will be shortly 
given for supposing that Rust was mistaken in this par- 
ticular, or that he was less anxious to discover the truth 
than to relate whatever reports w r ere likely to raise the 
character of his hero. The period, however, was now 
approaching which introduced the talents and learning of 
Taylor to a patron well qualified to appreciate and reward 
them. 

Shortly after his becoming Master of Arts, in 1633, 
having already been admitted into holy orders, he was 
employed by one Risden, who had been, according to 
the academical habits of the time, his chamber-fellow, 
and who was now lecturer in St. Paul's Cathedral, to 
supply his place for a short time in that pulpit, where his 
graceful person and elocution, together with the varied 
richness of his style and argument, and, perhaps, the 
singularity of a theological lecturer of twenty years of 
age, very soon obtained him friends and admirers. He 
was spoken of in high terms to Laud, who had then re- 
cently left the see of London for that of Canterbury, and 



20 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

who,with all his faults of temper and judgment, (exaggera- 
ted as those faults have been beyond all bounds by the bit- 
terness of the party whom he first persecuted, and who af- 
terwards hunted him to death,)must ever deserve the thanks 
of posterity as a liberal and judicious patron of that learning 
and piety, which he himself possessed in no ordinary 
degree. He sent for Taylor to preach before him at 
Lambeth, commended his performance highly, and only 
expressed an objection to the continuance of so young a 
preacher in London. Taylor, with youthful vivacity, 
" humbly begged his grace to pardon that fault," and 
promised that, " if he lived, he would amend it." Laud, 
however, as Rust informs us, " thought it for the advan- 
tage of the world that such mighty parts should be af- 
forded better opportunities of study and improvement 
than a course of constant preaching would allow of ; and, 
to that purpose, he placed him in his own college of 
All Souls, in Oxford." 

Here again the eulogium of bishop Rust may be 
charged with abundant inaccuracy and inconsistency. 
All Souls w r as not Laud's own college, inasmuch as he 
had passed his whole academical life at St. John's, the 
presidency of which society he relinquished when raised 
to the bishopric of St. Davids. Nor had he any further 
control over, or any closer connexion with All Souls, 
than that which subsists between every college and its 
visitor. The reason, too, which is given for Taylor's re- 
moval from Cambridge to another seat of learning, is 
plainly at variance with Rust's own previous assertion 
that he was already a fellow of Caius. Had. this been 
the case, Rust, himself a Cambridge man, would hardly 
have denied that a residence in his own university would 
have afforded him sufficient " opportunities of study and 
improvement :" nor could Laud have reasonably expect- 
ed or counselled Taylor to abandon a maintenance which 
he already possessed, in order to qualify himself for anoth- 
er situation of the same sort, and little, if at all, more 
lucrative. But if Taylor were then, as is most probable, 
a mere scholar of fortune, and unable, through poverty, 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 21 

to prolong his residence in his own university, it was only 
natural that his patron should be anxious to remove him 
to Oxford, where his rank as chancellor and visitor of 
several colleges gave him abundant opportunities of pro- 
viding for the object of his favour. 

When it was that Laud adopted this plan of befriend- 
ing Taylor, or what became of the latter in the mean 
time it is now too late to discover. If the interview 
which has been related took place soon after his arrival 
in London, it may seem that, however anxious Laud 
might be to remove him from thence, a considerable 
time elapsed before he took any successful steps in his 
favour at Oxford. During this time, perhaps, it was that 
he pursued bis studies, according to a tradition current 
in that neighbourhood, at Maidley Hall, near Tamworth. 
But, be this as it may, it was not till the 20th of Octo- 
ber, 1635, that Taylor was admitted to the same rank of 
master of arts in University College as he had previously 
held at Cambridge; and three days after that, the arch- 
bishop wrote a strong letter in his favour to the warden 
and fellows of All Souls. He there states, that a Mr. 
Osborn, one of their number, being about to "give over 
his fellowship," had offered him the nomination of a 
scholar to succeed him ; that he, " being willing to rec- 
ommend such an one as they should thank him for/' was 
" resolved to pitch on Mr. Jeremiah Taylor;" and that 
he " heartily prayed them to give him all furtherance at 
the next election, not doubting that he would approve 
himself a worthy and learned member of their society." 

What authority Mr. Osborn can have had to dispose 
in this manner of the nomination to a fellowship which 
he was himself about to resign, or how he could under- 
take to influence an election in which he was to have no 
voice, is not very easy to conjecture, unless we suppose 
him to have spoken the sentiments of some others among 
his brethren who may have desired to pay their visitor 
the unusual compliment of asking his " opinion in the 
choice of a new member of the society. The recom- 
mendation, however, forcible as it must have been, was 
3 



22 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.B. 

not received with implicit deference, inasmuch as a rea- 
sonable doubt existed whether Taylor was strictly eligi- 
ble. Wood, indeed, is wrong in saying that he was above 
the age at which he might be chosen ; but the statutes 
are express in requiring candidates to be of three years' 
standing in the university, whereas ten days had, at the 
time of the election, barely elapsed since Taylor had 
been incorporated into Oxford. It is true that Laud 
seems to have supposed that his admission " adeundem,^ 
as it entitled him to all the privileges of a master of arts, 
entitled him to whatever advantages were conferred by 
that standing in the university, which he must have had 
in order to take his degree there regularly. And a very 
great majority of the fellows, either convinced by this ar- 
gument, or desirous of straining a point in favour of a 
candidate so deserving and so powerfully recommended, 
appear to have espoused his cause, and to have voted in 
the first instance for his admission. Sheldon, however, 
the warden, (afterwards himself archbishop of Canter- 
bury, and a munificent benefactor to the university,) less 
pliant or more scrupulous, refused to concur in the elec- 
tion. Under these circumstances, the fellows persisting 
in their choice, no election at all took place, but the 
nomination devolved in due course to the archbishop, as 
visitor of the college, who thus acquired the right of ap- 
pointing Taylor by his sole authority to the vacant^situa- 
tion, on the 14th of January, 1636. 

This appears to be the true statement of a transaction 
which Wood has considerably misrepresented, as if Laud 
had, by an irregular and unwarrantable exercise of au- 
thority, intruded Taylor into a college, which was neither 
disposed, nor statuteably able, to receive him. It is 
plain, however, from documents of which Wood had no 
knowledge, that (whatever may be thought of the pro- 
priety of Osborn's conduct or the validity of Sheldon's 
objection,) the archbishop had at least a plausible ex- 
cuse for his recommendation of a candidate ; and a 
ground, whether tenable or not, which might justify his 
recommendation of Taylor. It is plain, that a candi- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 23 

date whom the fellows almost unanimously approved of 
was not personally disagreeable to them ; while (the fel- 
lows and warden being at variance on the interpretation 
of a statute) the decision must naturally and legally have 
rested with the visitor only. The conduct of Sheldon 
throughout the affair appears to have been at once spir- 
ited and conscientious ; but it may have been marked by 
some degree of personal harshness towards Taylor, since 
we find that, for some years after, a coolness subsisted 
between them, till the generous conduct of the warden 
produced, as will be seen, a sincere and lasting reconcil- 
iation. # 

Taylor was now in possession of those advantages 
which his patron had esteemed so necessary for his im- 
provement ; a dignified retirement, a decent maintenance, 
and a free access to books and learned conversation. 
And we are told by his biographer how much he profited 
by these opportunities, and how much he was admired 
by the university for his " excellent casuistical preach- 
ing." Unfortunately, however, it appears by the college 
books, that during the four years of his remaining a fel- 
low, he was by no means a regular resident ; while, of 
his existing sermons, there are few which can be reckon- 
ed casuistical, and only one, the composition of which we 
have any reason to refer to the time of his Oxford stud- 
ies. I have not been able to learn at what date he was 
made one of the archbishop's chaplains, an office which 
would naturally draw him a good deal away from the 
scene which he was so well adapted to ornament ; but 
he was, on the 23d of March, 1637-8, presented by 
Juxon, bishop of London, (probably through the interest 
of his steady friend, the archbishop,) to the rectory of 
Uppingham, in Rutlandshire, which, though tenable 
with his fellowship, was a still better reason than his 
chaplaincy for making his residence in All Souls occa- 
sional only. 

During this time he is said by Wood to have first be- 

* Note E. 



24 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

come the object of a suspicion, which, however unde- 
served, continued through life to haunt him, of a conceal- 
ed attachment to the Romish communion. Such a re- 
port was almost sure to be raised at the expense of any 
man whom Laud esteemed and promoted. And if Tay- 
lor had already adopted his ascetic notions of piety, his 
profound veneration for antiquity, and his attachment to 
the picturesque and poetical features of religion, he 
w r ould be only the more likely to incur a charge which, 
in a more advanced period of his life, and while contend- 
ing against the errors of popery, he solemnly declared to 
have been always unfounded and slanderous. And if, 
as Wood assures us, and as is certainly not improbable, 
he lived at this time on terms of intimate intercourse with 
a learned Franciscian friar, known by the name of Fran- 
cis a Sancta Clara, such a friendship, however innocent 
and creditable to both parties, was, in those days of bit- 
terness and jealousy, sufficient to give confirmation to 
any rumours of the kind which might be propagated or 
believed, not only by the puritans, but by the same par- 
ty among the papists who tempted Laud with a cardinal's 
hat, and who seem to have flattered themselves that all 
the more learned and moderate protestants of the age 
were secretly " tending towards Latium." 

This Franciscian, whose real name was Christopher 
Davenport, but who was also known by the name of 
Hunt, was, in his time, an extraordinary person. He 
was born of protestant parents, and, with his brother 
John, entered at an early age, in the year 1613, as bat- 
tier, or poor scholar, of Merton College. The brothers, 
as they grew up, fell into almost opposite religious opin- 
ions. John became first a violent puritan, and, at length, 
an independent. Christopher, two years after his en- 
trance at Merton, being then only seventeen years old, 
fled to Douay with a Romish priest, and took the vows 
of Francis of Assisi. He rambled for some years through 
the universities of the Low Countries and Spain ; became 
reader of divinity at Douay, and obtained the degree of 
doctor. At length he appeared as a missionary in Eng- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 25 

land, where he was appointed one of queen Henrietta's 
chaplains, and, during more than fifty years, secretly 
laboured in the cause of his religion. An intimacy with 
him was one of the charges brought against Laud on his 
trial ; when it appeared that, in fact, he had been intro- 
duced to the archbishop by his chaplain, Dr. Augustine 
Lindsell, as a person engaged in a work on the Opera- 
tion of God's Grace, and a Defence of Episcopacy.* 
Laud seem to have paid him but little attention ; but 
Wood informs us that he was much esteemed " by many 
great and worthy persons ;" and he appears to have been 
a man of sufficient learning and moderation to have given 
alarm to many of the bigots of his own persuasion, and 
of sufficient zeal and talent to have served the interests 
of that persuasion in the most effectual manner. His 
works, of which a long list is given by Wood, are mark- 
ed, on the whole, with a conciliatory spirit ; and he met 
with so much of the usual fortune of conciliators, as to 
have his book, entitled "Deus, Natura, Gratia/' put into 
the Index Expurgationis in Spain, and all but committed 
publicly to the flames in Italy. His merits, however, 
towards his own church, were at length acknowledged, 
by his being made principal chaplain to the queen of 
Charles the Second, and chosen, for many years in suc- 
cession, provincial of his own order in England. His 
conversation is described by Wood as free and lively ; 
and he found many friends, and a frequent asylum, at 
Oxford, where it was his desire to be buried in the 
church of St. Ebba, formerly belonging to the Francis- 
cans. He was, however, interred in London, where he 
died, at a great age, in 1680. 

The friendship of such a man as this could not dis- 
grace Taylor ; but when Davenport, as Wood assures 
us, ascribed to Taylor a regularly formed resolution of 
being reconciled to the Church of Rome, which only 
failed through the indignation of their party at certain 
expressions in a sermon preached by him on the fifth of 

* Note G. 

3* 



26 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

November, 1638, it is most reasonable, as well as most 
charitable, to impute the assertion to a failure of memo- 
ry, not unnatural to one so far advanced in years as he 
must have been when Wood conversed with him. 

Thus he tells us, that Taylor being appointed to preach 
before the university on the anniversary of the Gunpow- 
der Treason, the then vice-chancellor insisted on his in- 
serting many things so offensive to the Roman Catholics, 
that his friendship was afterwards rejected by them with 
scorn, notwithstanding his expressions of regret and pen- 
itence for the sentiments which he had been constrained 
to utter. 

If, however, as Mr. Bonney well observes, " the vice- 
chancellor had done what was reported, he must have 
completely remodelled the whole discourse ;" which in- 
stead of bearing any marks of such interpolation, is 
nothing else, from beginning to end, but a connected, and 
consistent chain of argument against the principles of 
the Roman Catholics, as what must, in their nature, con- 
duct to such effects as the conspiracy of Digby and his 
associates. Of invective (which a violent person, or one 
who desired the preacher to sacrifice to the angry feel- 
ings of the time, was most likely to introduce into the 
discourse of another,) there is absolutely no appearance. 
And as Taylor was not a likely man to compromise his 
high reputation ; or his rank in the university and in the 
church, by adopting, against his own opinion, the senti- 
ments or language of another ; so, what he had once 
said and published, he was still less likely to retract in 
the manner which Wood, on the authority of Davenport, 
imputes to him. I may add, that there is little in the 
sermon itself which could have shocked or surprised the 
Roman Catholics, as proceeding from a professed mem- 
ber of the Protestant Church, and master of arts in an 
English university. Nor is it likely that they, who were 
not deterred by Laud's controversy with Fisher from ex- 
pecting the conversion of that prelate, or from persecut- 
ing him through life with their fatal friendship, would, on 
so much slighter an offence, have given up whatever hold 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 27 

of intimacy or influence they had acquired over such a 
mind as that of Jeremy Taylor. 

It has been said that he was appointed to preach the 
sermon in question by his patron, the archbishop. If 
this were true, it would be still more improbable that, 
thus appointed, he would submit his composition to the 
censure of the vice-chancellor. But of this designation 
there is, in truth, no appearance. The appointment of 
preachers on such occasions is usually exercised by the 
vice-chancellor, not the chancellor himself; and the au- 
thor, in his dedication to Laud, plainly gives us to under- 
stand, that "the superior," in obedience to whose com- 
mands he embarked in the work, was not the same with 
him to whom he inscribed it when published. " It pleas- 
ed some," he says, " who had the power to command 
me, to wish me to the publication of these my short and 
sudden meditations, that, if it were possible, even this 
way I might express my duty to God and the king. 
Being thus far encouraged, I resolved to go somewhat 
further, even to the boldness of a dedication to your 
grace, that, since I have no merit of my own to move 
me to the confidence of a public view, yet I might dare 
to venture under the protection of your grace's favour." 
And he goes on to allege several different reasons for the 
propriety of inscribing such a work to the archbishop, 
without once mentioning (what, if it were true, would 
have been the best reason of all,) that it was by Laud's 
own command that he had undertaken the discussion of 
the subject. 

Of this earliest production of Taylor's genius, the de- 
fects and merits may be the subject of future investiga- 
tion. I will here merely observe, that the former are 
those of the time at which he lived, and are, themselves, 
chiefly defects as being out of their place, and as less 
proper for a solemn discourse than a popular harangue 
or a polemical pamphlet. The latter are almost ex- 
clusively his own ; and if we have less of that splendid 
strain of eloquence which, in his later works, has left 
him without a rival, it will not be denied that in his ear- 



28 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

liest sermons are many blossoms of genuine power and 
beauty, which continued meditation and longer practice 
might be reasonably expected to ripen into fruits worthy 
of Paradise. 

Ascetic as Taylor was in many of his opinions, celib- 
acy appears to have formed no part of his plan of life ; 
nor does he seemed to have attached so much value to 
the learned leisure of an university, as to have been in- 
clined to linger there after a new and important scene of 
action and duty was elsewhere opened to him. I have 
already observed, that from the date of his institution to 
Uppingham, he was but little resident in All Souls ; and 
he now, at an earlier age than is usual with literary men, 
took a step which was to separate him from his fellow- 
ship entirely. 

On the 27th of May, 1639, being then in the twenty- 
sixth year of his age, he married, at Uppingham, Phoebe 
Landisdale, or Langsdale, of whose family little else is 
known than that her brother was a physician established 
first at Gainsborough, and afterwards at Leeds, where he 
was buried January the 7th, 1683. Of Phoebe's mother 
though not of her father, mention is made in one of Tay- 
lor's letters ; and from this circumstance, as well as the 
daughter's being married at Uppingham, it is probable 
that she was a widow residing in that parish. 

By Phoebe Langsdale, Taylor had three sons, one of 
whom, William, (so named, in all probability, after his 
great patron, Laud), was buried at Uppingham on the 
28th of May, 1642 ; nor did the mother long survive her 
infant. The other boys grew up to manhood, and their 
melancholy deaths were among the last and most grevi- 
ous trials of Taylor's eventful pilgrimage. 

This year, (1642,) was marked, however, by many 
public as well as private sorrows ; and, in the great strug- 
gle which was now begun, he ably and courageously con- 
tended on the side both of episcopacy and monarchy. 
He appears to have been among the first to join the king 
at Oxford, where, shortly after, he published, "by his 
Majesty's command," his treatise of u Episcopacy asser- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 29 

ted against the Acephali and Aerians, new and old ;" 
" encouraged/ 7 as Heylin tells us, " by many petitions" 
to the same effect " to his majesty and both houses of 
parliament." But though it was natural that the outrage- 
ous proceedings of the presbyterian party should have 
produced a considerable revulsion in the national feeling, 
and though the work itself is well adapted to profit by 
and strengthen such a disposition, it is probable that 
men's minds, were by this time, too generally made up 
to leave them inclination or leisure for the study of con- 
troversy ; and the fact that the treatise remained without 
an attempt at reply from the other party, is a probable 
argument that it was less read than it well deserved to be. 

To such rewards, however, as the king and church had 
to bestow, Taylor had no common pretensions ; and we 
find him admitted, on the first of November in the same 
year, with many other eminent loyalists, by the royal 
mandate, to the degree of doctor of divinity. The dis- 
tinction, however, was considerably lessened by the indis- 
criminate manner in which similar honours were then be- 
stowed inasmuch as the unfortunate monarch, having few 
other ways in his power of rewarding the services of his 
adherents, created about the same time his doctors and 
masters of arts with so much profusion as to call forth a 
remonstrance from the heads of houses against a practice 
which threatened to destroy the discipline, the dignity, 
and even the revenues of the university.* 

The Presbyterians had more power to hurt than 
Charles to reward : and it was, probably, about this time 
that the rectory of Uppingham was sequestered ; a fact 
which is certain from the joint authority of Walker and 
Lloyd, no less than from all which is known of Taylor's 
subsequent poverty. The date of his deprivation, how- 
ever, or the name of his intrusive successor, I am not 
able to supply. Neither Walker, Calamy, nor Clarke, 
throw any light on the subject ; and though the bishop 
of Peterborough has, with much kindness, examined for 

*Note H. 



30 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

me the register's office of that diocese, no information 
appears there, or in the parish books of Uppingham, 
which can add any thing to the facts already collected 
by Mr. Bonney. Of course, neither Taylor, nor any of 
the deprived clergy, relinquished their claim to the liv- 
ings of which they were despoiled ; but as their places 
were, in every instance, filled up without loss of time by 
the ruling party, it is something remarkable that no rec- 
ord remains of the institution of the intruder, his incum- 
bency, or his expulsion on the return of monarchy and 
episcopacy. The name of Daniel Swift only once occurs 
(on the 20th of April, 1652) as choosing a churchwarden 
and signing himself c Pastor de Uppingham ;" and there 
is not the smallest appearance, during the following years 
of Taylor's life, that he received any part of that pit- 
tance which the clergy, presented to livings by the par- 
liamentary commissioners, were enjoined to pay their ex- 
pelled predecessors. 

He had obtained, however, a wealthy and powerful 
patron in Christopher Hatton, Esq. afterwards Lord 
Hatton of Kirby, who had been his neighbour at Up- 
pingham, and to whom his Defence of Episcopacy, as 
well as many other of his earlier works, are dedicated ; 
"a person," Clarendon tells us, " who, when he was 
appointed controller of the king's household, possessed 'a 
great reputation, which, in a few years, he found a way 
to diminish." 

It is always difficult to determine the real character of 
a public man, between the widely varying statements of 
his friends on one side, and his enemies or rivals on the 
other. The same lord Hervey who was the Sporus of 
Pope's tremendous satire, is extolled by Middleton, in 
all the exuberance of elegant flattery, as the last of the 
Romans, the bravest, the best, and most eloquent of man- 
kind. Nor is it easy to find a more splendid character in 
history, than is ascribed by the hope or gratitude of Tay- 
lor to the nobleman of whom the historian speaks thus 
slightingly. It was not, indeed, till the present age that 
men of letters appear to have broken through that de- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 31 

basing custom, which made excessive eulogium and af- 
fected humility essentials in the addresses of authors to 
the great and wealthy. Yet Hatton cannot have been 
destitute of learning or of talents, since in him Taylor 
found opinions congenial to his own on the subject of tol- 
eration, and since it was at his suggestion, and with his 
assistance, that Dugdale undertook his Monasticon.* 

Of Taylor's history, during the remainder of the civil 
war, we are very imperfectly informed. Wood speaks 
of him as a frequent preacher before the court at Oxford, 
and as following the royal army in the capacity of chap- 
lain, till, on the decline of the king's cause, he sought 
an asylum in Carmarthenshire. The following letter, 
however, represents him, at the close of the year 1643, 
living, for a time at least, with his mother-in-law and 
children, and oppressed, as would seem from some of his 
expressions, by those pecuniary difficulties w r hich, during 
by far the greater part of his life, continued to pursue 
and harass him. The silence observed respecting his 
wife confirms lady Wray's statement, that he had buried 
her before he quitted Uppingham. For the rest, it 
serves to show how constantly his attention was directed 
to the spiritual welfare and improvement of those with 
whom he was connected. The original letter is in the 
British Museum. — 

" Deare Brother, — Thy letter was most welcome 
to me, bringing the happy news of thy recovery. I had 
notice of thy danger, but watched for this happy relation, 
and had layd wayte with Royston to enquire of Mr. 
Rumbould. I hope I shall not neede to bid thee be care- 
full for the perfecting thy health, and to be fearful of a 
relapse. Though I am very much, yet thou thyself art 
more concerned in it. But this I will remind thee of, 
that thou be infinitely [careful] to perform to God those 
holy promises which I suppose thou didst make in thy 
sicknesse ; and remember what thoughts thou hadst then 

♦Not© I. 



32 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

and bear them along upon thy spirit all thy life-time. 
For that which was true then is so still, and the world is 
really as vain a thing as thou didst then suppose it. I 
durst not tell thy mother of thy danger (though I heard 
of it,) till, at the same time, I told her of thy recovery. 
Poore woman ! she was troubled and pleased at the same 
time, but your letter did determine her. I take it kindly 
that thou hast writt to Bowman. If I had been in con- 
dition you should not have beene troubled w 7 ith it ; but, 
as it is, both thou and I must be content. Thy mother 
sends her blessing to thee and her little Mally. So doe I, 
and my prayers to God for you both. Your little cozens 
are your servants ; and I am 

" Thy most affectionate and endeared Brother, 

" November 24, 1643." "JER. TAYLOR." 

"To my very dear Brother, D. Langsdale at his 
Apothecary's House in Gainsborough." 

This letter is without any mention of the place whence 
it was written ; but the notice which occurs of Royston, 
who was a bookseller and printer in Ivy Lane, and who 
published most of Taylor's later works, would naturally 
lead us to suspect that its writer was then in London. 
This is however, altogether at variance with Wood's 
statement, unless we suppose that, for some reason which 
cannot now be discovered, he discontinued his attend- 
ance on the royal person at a far earlier period than 
a the decline of the royal cause." Next year, however 
we find him in Wales, and again attached to a portion of 
the army, since Whitelock mentions a Dr. Taylor (and 
Jeremy Taylor is the only person of that name and de- 
gree whom I have been able to discover among the roy- 
alists) as a conspicuous prisoner, (the only one, indeed, 
whose name he notices,) in the victory gained by the 
parliamentary troops over colonel Charles Gerard, before 
the castle of Cardigan, on the 4th of February, 1644. 
And I am inclined to suspect that the cause which drew 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 33 

him away from the royal army was love ; that he had 
formed an attachment to the lady who afterwards became 
his second wife, during the first visit of king Charles to 
Wales; and that he married her, and retired to her 
property, soon after the date of his letter to Dr. Langs- 
dale, though the evils of war, extending themselves into 
the most remote and peaceful districts, again, and in a 
very short space of time, involved him in their vortex. 
Something of this kind is plainly intimated in the dedica- 
tion to his Liberty of Prophesying ; and the passage it- 
self is worth transcribing, not only for the spirit of poetry 
which it breathes, but as giving us almost all the informa- 
tion which remains as to the troubles of Jeremy Taylor. 

In it, he tells his patron, lord Hatton, that, " in the 
great storm which dashed the vessel of the church all in 
pieces, he had been cast on the coast of Wales ; and, in 
a little boat thought to have enjoyed that rest and quiet" 
ness, which, in England, in a far greater, he could not 
hope for. Here," he continues, " I cast anchor ; and, 
thinking to ride safely, the storm followed me with so 
impetuous violence, that it broke a cable, and I lost 
my anchor. And here again I was exposed to the mer- 
cy of the sea, and the gentleness of an element that 
could neither distinguish things nor persons. And but 
that He who stilleth the raging of the sea, and the noise 
of his waves, and the madness of his people, had provided 
a plank for me, I had been lost to all the opportunities of 
content or study. But I know not whether I have been 
more preserved by the courtesies of my friends, or the 
gentleness and mercies of a noble enemy. c O* ydg @dq- 

6uqoi Ttaqslyov ov Tr\v Tv/ovcrav cpilcLV&gwTcictv rj/uiv' dvdxp- 
avrsg ydg Ttvgdv, TtgoasldSovTO IIANTA2 HMA2, did zbv 
vstov top ecpecrT&Tct, xal did to ipv/og." 

That a voluntary retreat from the more busy scenes of 
war and politics ; that a subsequent exposure to the same 
interruptions, with more than their usual share of attend- 
ant misfortunes ; that the help of friends, and the forbear- 
ance of enemies, are here spoken of, is sufficiently evi- 
dent. But the Greek quotation from the Acts of the 
4 



34 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

Apostles (for which, by the way, those generous enemies 
whom he praises, had they understood it, would have 
scarcely thanked him,) implies, at least, that he had 
many fellow-sufferers in that particular danger to which 
he alludes. Nor can I find any defeat of the loyalists in 
the neighbourhood of his Welch retirement which so well 
tallies with these different circumstances, as that which 
Whitelock has recorded. The Liberty of Prophesying 
was, indeed, not published till 1647 ; but, for the proba- 
ble duration of his imprisonment, the time necessary to 
collect his books, and, in the midst of those avocations on 
which his livelihood depended, to prepare for the press 
such an essay as that to which he chiefly owes his fame, 
would account for a far longer interval between his be- 
coming a prisoner and the date of that work, than the 
hypothesis on which I have ventured supposes. 

Nor can I consider it as inconvenient with this opinion, 
that during this same year, 1644, there appeared at Ox- 
ford his edition of the Psalter, with Collects affixed to 
each Psalm ; and that a Defence of the Liturgy, which 
he afterwards improved into a larger work, was also pub- 
lished, and honoured by the approbation of king Charles. 
On the contary, the supposition of his being, at this time, 
in the enemy's hands, will account for that which is other- 
wise not easy to explain, why, contrary to his usual prac- 
tice, the latter of these came out anonymously, and the 
former under the name of Hatton. If this last measure 
were intended to gratify his patron's vanity, it would be a 
trick discreditable to both sides ; though to Taylor, in his 
deep poverty and burthened with a family, much might 
be forgiven. But, while yet a prisoner, there might be 
some reason for his abstaining from publishing any thing 
in his own name, though even this would hardly justify 
Hatton in appropriating to himself the work of another.* 

How long Taylor remained a prisoner, and on what 
terms, and by whose interest he was released, there are 
now small hopes of discovering. I would gladly have 

♦Note J. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 35 

recorded, with some degree of certainty, the names of 
those generous enemies from whom he received so much 
unexpected kindness. All which is known on this sub 
ject is, that colonel Laugharn, governor of Pembroke Cas- 
tle, was the chief parliamentary officer about this time in 
South Wales ; and that colonel Broughton, colonel Ste- 
phens, Mr. Catching of Trelleck, and Mr. Jones of Uske, 
are named by Rushworth as the committee for that dis- 
trict. It is to these gentlemen, therefore, or to some 
among them that the Christian world is indebted for their 
humanity to one of its brightest ornaments. Such in- 
stances of individual gentleness and forbearance occur like 
bright and insulated spots in the gloomy annals of most 
civil wars ; but an Englishman may recollect with grati- 
tude and some degree of honest pride in his own nation 
and ancestors, that more such are, perhaps, to be found 
in the records of our own troubles than in those of any 
other contest of equal length, and embittered by so many 
different circumstances of religious and popular hatred. 

When Taylor was once in Wales, it was not likely he 
would rejoin the royal army, even supposing him released 
from his confinement or his parole, before the success of 
that army became desperate by the secession of the king 
and his surrender of himself to the Scottish forces. I am 
not, however, of opinion, that he had now taken a last 
leave of his unfortunate master. In August, 1647, the 
chaplains of the imprisoned monarch were again allowed, 
for a time, free access to him ; and it appears, that, at a 
late period of Charles's misfortunes, Taylor had an inter- 
view with him, and received from him, in token of his 
regard, his watch, and a few pearls and rubies which had 
ornamented the ebony case in which he kept his Bible. 

Being now deprived of all church preferment, he sup- 
ported himself by keeping a school, which he carried on 
in partnership with William Nicholson, afterwards bishop 
of Gloucester, and William Wyat, who subsequently ob- 
tained the rank of prebendary of Lincoln. Their success, 
considering their remote situation and the distresses of the 
times, appears to have been not inconsiderable. Newton 



36 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

Hall, a house in the parish of Lanfihangel, which they 
jointly rented, is dignified by Wyat, in his Latin epistle to 
lord Hatton, which will be shortly noticed, with the title of 
"Collegium Newtoniense :" and Wood tells us of "sev- 
eral youths most loyally educated there, and afterwards 
sent to the universities. " 

Of their scholars, however, none are now remembered 
but Judge Powell, who bore a distinguished part on the 
trial of the seven bishops ; Richard Peers, an Irishman 
of mean extraction, but who is mentioned by Wood among 
the list of Oxford writers ; and a certain Griffin Lloyd, 
Esq. of Cwmgwilly, who has thought it worth while, as 
Judge Powell has also done, to record on his tomb that 
he was educated under Taylor and Nicholson. # Nor 
have I been able to ascertain how long their partnership 
continued, though it certainly was dissolved long before 
the restoration of the royal family, and even before Tay- 
lor's departure from Wales. 

Of this establishment, accordingly, the most remarka- 
ble fruit with which we are acquainted, is " A New and 
Easy Institution of Grammar," which appeared in 1647 ; 
to which are prefixed two epistles dedicatory, the one by 
Wyat, in Latin, which has been already noticed as ad- 
dressed to lord Hatton ; the other in English, by Taylor 
himself, to Christopher Hatton, his patron's eldest son, 
then a youth of fifteen, afterwards raised by Charles the 
Second to the dignity of a viscount, and made governor of 
Guernsey. This address is in the usual style of his wri- 
tings, devout, affectionate, and eloquent. The work 
which it introduces (though pompously panegyrized in a 
copy of Latin verses by a certain F. Gregory, who ap- 
pears to have been an under-master at Westminister,) was, 
probably, the work of Wyat rather than of Taylor, and, 
though well adapted to its purpose, is not of a nature to 
add materially to the reputation of either. 

It was followed, shortly after by the most curious, and, 
perhaps the ablest of all his compositions, — his admirable 

*NoteK, 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 37 

" Liberty of Prophesying ;"composed, as he tells his pat- 
ron, lord Hatton, in the epistle dedicatory, under a host of 
grievous disadvantages ; in adversity and want ; with- 
out books or leisure, and with no other resources than those 
which were supplied by a long familiarity with the sacred 
volume, and a powerful mind, imbued with all the learn- 
ing of past ages. 

Of the work thus produced, an account will be given 
hereafter. Of its importance and value at the time of its 
first appearance, some opinion may be formed by reecol- 
lecting that it is the first attempt on record to conciliate 
the minds of Christians to the reception of a doctrine 
which, though now the rule of action professed by all 
Christian sects, was then by every sect alike, regarded as 
a perilous and portentous novelty. 

There is abundant proof, indeed, in the history of the 
times in which Taylor lived, and of those which immedi- 
ately preceded him, that (much as every religious party, 
in its turn, had suffered from persecution, and loudly and 
bitterly as each had, in its own particular instance, com- 
plained of the severities exercised against its members,) 
no party had yet been found to perceive the great wicked- 
ness of persecution in the abstract, or the moral unfitness 
of temporal punishment as an engine of religious contro- 
versy. Even the sects who were themselves under op- 
pression exclaimed against their rulers, not as being per- 
secutors at all, but as persecuting those who professed 
the truth; and each sect, as it obtained the power to 
wield the secular weapon, esteemed it also a duty, as well 
as a privilege, not to bear the sword in vain. 

Under such circumstances, it was absolutely necessary 
for Taylor to guard against misrepresentation or miscon- 
ception ; to admit, as he has done in his epistle to lord 
Hatton, repeatedly and expressly, the expedience of 
suppressing, even by force, such religious opinions (if any 
such there were) as taught sedition or immorality, and to 
prove that the exclusion of the secular weapon from our 
Christian warfare was not inconsistent with the employ- 
ment of all peaceable and charitable means of refuting 
4* 



38 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR D.B. 

error, and of bringing back, by fair argument and good 
example, to the sheepfold of our Divine Master, our 
deceived or deceiving brethren. 

But, notwithstanding this eloquent apology, the Liber- 
ty of Prophesying inculcated a doctrine too entirely at 
variance with the practice and prejudices of Taylor's age, 
to escape the animadversions of his contemporaries. A 
copy of the first edition, which now lies before me has its 
margin almost covered with manuscript notes, expressive 
of doubt or disapprobation ; and the commentator, who- 
ever he w T as, has subjoiqed at the end of the volume, 
"Taceo metu," and " Vobis dico non omnibus." His 
arguments, more particularly, in behalf of the Anabap- 
tists, were regarded as too strenuous and unqualified; and 
the opinions of the author himself having consequently 
fallen into suspicion, he, in a subsequent edition, added a 
powerful and satisfastory explanation of his previous lan- 
guage 3 and an answer to the considerations which he had 
himself advanced in apology for the opinions of those 
sectaries. 

That Taylor was most sincere in his belief of the pro- 
priety and efficacy of infant baptism, he has shown in the 
sixth and seventh discourses of his " Great Exemplar," 
w T hich he, in the first instance, published separately, in 
the year 1655, as a corrective to the mischief he was 
supposed to have done by his previous admissions ; ac- 
companied by a preface, in which he refers the reader, 
for fuller satisfaction, to the labours of his friend, Dr. 
Hammond, on the same subject. 

Hammond, indeed, had himself, though with much 
courtesy and kindness of expression, undertaken to an- 
swer the precise arguments employed by Taylor, in his 
" Letter of Resolution to six Queres of present use with 
the Church of England." He there, under the head of 
the Baptizing of Infants, describes the collection of pre- 
sumptions against Pseudo-baptism contained in the Lib- 
erty of Prophesying, as V the most diligent he had met 
with," and as " so impartially enforcing the arguments of 
his adversaries, that he knew not where to furnish him- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 39 

self with so exact a scheme, and that therefore, on that 
one account he should choose to follow the path which 
his friend had traced before him." 

Hammond and Taylor well knew each other's worth. 
They were, for a few years at least, fellow-students. 
They together, in the worst of times, obtained, by un- 
shaken loyalty and piety unimpeached, the respect of 
their political and religious opponents ; and they were so 
perfectly trusted by the loyalists, that they were made 
the joint channels for dispensing those contributions 
which were privately raised, to a large amount, for the 
persecuted clergy of the church of England. 

How well Hammond, in his controversy with Tombes, 
as well as in the work already noticed, performed his 
part as advocate for Paedo-baptism, it is unnecessary here 
to notice. Of Taylor's exertions in the same good cause, 
I can give no better proof than the weight which is as- 
cribed to his testimony by a writer who has discussed 
those unfortunate controversies which have recently 
arisen on baptismal regeneration, with a wisdom, a dis- 
crimination and a conciliatory temper, which can hardly 
be surpassed, and which have been too little imitated. 

Of those who, in Taylor's own day, attacked the 
leading principle on which the Liberty of Prophesying 
was founded, the most considerable, and the only one 
whose name has descended to the present times, though 
rather as the mark of one of Milton's satirical arrows, 
than for any of those particulars which excited the 
respect and deference of his Calvinistic contemporaries, 
w T as Samuel Rutherford, professor.of divinity in the uni- 
versity of St. Andrew's. He produced, in 1649, " A 
Free Disputation against pretended Liberty of Con- 
science," which Taylor never noticed so far as to answer, 
but which appears to have been one, at least, of the 
causes which led Milton, who is said to have always ad- 
mired Taylor, and whose zeal for toleration was as un- 
limited and as consistent as Taylor's was, to insert the 



40 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

name of Rutherford in the contemptuous diatribe to 
which I have alluded.* 

An attack of a different kind has, in later times, been 
made on the Liberty of Prophesying, arraigning not the 
principles of the work, but the motives and sincerity of 
the author in maintaining them. He has been represent- 
ed as arguing, not from his own personal conviction, but 
as an advocate, and to serve the temporary ends of his 
party ; since, though a churchman, he was a dissenter 
when the Liberty of Prophesying was written. " He 
was then," proceeds the writer from whose book this 
charge is taken, " pleading for toleration to episcopacy. 
He must either have written what he did not himself 
fully believe, or, in a few years, his opinion must have 
undergone a wonderful change. With the return of mon- 
archy, Taylor emerged from obscurity ; wrote no more 
' on the Liberty of Prophesying ;' and was a member of 
the privy council of Charles the Second, from which 
all the persecuting edicts against the poor non-conform- 
ists proceeded. It deserves to be viewed, therefore, as 
the special pleading of a party counsellor, or the produc- 
tion of Jeremy Taylor, deprived of his benefice and the 
privileges of his profession, imploring relief; of which 
bishop Taylor, enlightened by the elevation of his epis- 
copate, and enjoying, with the party, security and abun- 
dance, became ashamed, and, in his own conduct, pub- 
lished the most effectual recantation of his former opin- 
ions or sincerity." And, on this supposed tergiversation 
of Taylor, the writer proceeds to ground the sweeping 
censure, that it is in vain to look for liberality or forbear- 
ance from the members of an establishment." 

With the logical accuracy of the vulgar maxim, "ex 
uno disce omnes ;" or with the degree of Christian can- 
dour which the above application of it exhibits, I have, 
at present, no concern ; though it is possible that Mr. 
Orme would be displeased, and I am sure he would have 
sufficient right to be so, if I had reasoned, like him, from 
the faults or inconsistency of any single individual, to the 
prejudice of all the other members of the Independent 

* Note L. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 41 

persuasion. But I am only concerned with his charges 
against Jeremy Taylor ; and am anxious, therefore, to in- 
form him — what he might have easily learned for himself, 
and what it was his duty to have inquired into, before he 
brought such a charge as persecution against the fair fame 
of any man, — that though bishop Taylor was a nominal 
member of the Irish privy council, there is no reason what- 
ever to suppose that he took a part in the measures of any 
administration; that the administration of Ireland didnot,in 
fact, during the reign of Charles the Second, persecute the 
dissenters ; that Taylor had not even an opportunity of con- 
curring in the severe measures of the English government; 
and that no action of his life is known which can justly ex- 
pose him to the suspicion of having been a persecutor him- 
self, or having approved of persecution in others. That 
he did not write any more about Liberty of Prophesying, 
while his former work was in every body's hands, and 
while its principles remained unanswered, is no very se- 
rious charge against a man whose time was, in many other 
ways, abundantly occupied. But, that he was not asham- 
ed of his former treatise on this subject, is apparent from 
the fact, that it appears in a prominent situation in the 
successive editions of his controversial tracts, of which 
one, the second, was published when he was actually 
bishop, and amid the recent triumph of his party. Nor, 
though there are, unquestionably, some passages in the 
Liberty of Prophesying where Taylor speaks, rather as 
urging what may be said in behalf of the more obnoxious 
creeds, than as expressing his own opinion, can I conceive 
that an intelligent and candid reader will find any diffi- 
culty in distinguishing between such passages and those 
where he pleads (with every appearance of the deepest 
and most conscientious conviction) the common cause of 
all Christian sects under persecution. That, in so doing, 
he might be animated with the greater zeal by the cir- 
cumstance that his own sect was thus unhappily situated, 
I am neither obliged nor inclined to deny. Nor do I con- 
ceive that this circumstance alone would lead a candid 
mind to suspect his sincere belief of those general princi- 



42 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

pies on which he proceeds ; or his anxiety, that not the 
church of England alone, but all other Christian com- 
munions, should be partakers in the benefit of his argu- 
ments. Had it been otherwise, indeed, he would rather, 
as an artful advocate, have applied himself to the pallia- 
tion of the particular differences existing between the 
Episcopalians and the Presbyterians, than have offended 
the prejudices of these last, in the pride of their new- 
blown success, by advancing principles which they were 
so little prepared to receive, and encumbering his cause 
with the patronage of those sects who were the objects 
of still greater abhorrence and alarm than his own perse- 
cuted communion. 

The truth is, however, that if we consider the moment 
at which the Liberty of Prophesying appeared, and con- 
sider also, not only the spirit of mutual concession which 
it breathes, but the principles on which it rests, and the 
natural consequences which flow from them, we shall per- 
ceive that the Presbyterians w T ere not the only party for 
whose instruction it was designed, and that its object was 
to induce not only an abatement of the claims which they 
were then urging on the king, but a disposition on the 
king's part, and on the part of his advisers among the 
episcopal clergy, to concede somewhat more to those de- 
mands than their principles had as yet permitted them. 
The circumstances of the times, in 1647, were such, in- 
deed, as to offer a greater probability than any former 
period of the war, that moderate counsels would prevail, 
and that an arrangement of mutual toleration might be 
adopted, which would preserve the kingly government, 
and heal, in a certain degree, the religious feuds of the 
nation. King Charles was removed from the custody of 
the parliamentary commissioners to what were supposed 
the more indulgent hands of Cromwell and the army. 
His person was treated with far greater respect than for- 
merly. His chaplains were allowed to officiate in his 
presence according to the English Service Book ; and all 
parties were so situated, that it seemed the interest of all 
to court him, The parliament and the army were at open 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, B.D. 43 

variance ; and the two prevailing sects, the Presbyterians 
and Independents, were scarcely less incensed with each 
other than with the episcopal clergy. Even these last 
were not yet universally ejected from their benefices ; and 
the force of private character, the fame of extensive 
learning, and, perhaps, the ties of blood and friendship, 
were of sufficient weight, till this year, to protect Hall in 
his episcopal palace at Norwich, and Sanderson and Ham- 
mond in their public situations at Oxford. All which 
seemed wanting to an accommodation, was to convince 
the several parties that the points in question were those 
on which they might conscientiously give way to the 
opinions or prejudices of their brethren ; and that, so far 
from being bound to destroy each other's persons, they 
might meet in the same places of worship, and conform 
to that government, and those rites (whichever of the 
contending parties should be most favoured in them,) 
which might be agreed on by the king and parliament. 

That this was Taylor's own opinion, and that he de- 
sired his arguments to take effect on all the different par- 
ties of the nation, is apparent, I think, from the fact of 
his having dedicated this work to so strenuous a high 
churchman as Hatton, as well as from the anxiety which 
he expresses, not only that persecution for religious opin- 
ions might cease, but that contention about them might 
be suspended ; that the churches of Christ should be dis- 
tinguished by no other names than those of the nations in 
which they were established ; and that each church might 
receive to its bosom men of various opinions, even as that 
heaven of which the Christian church ought to be the 
living image. And it is evident, that, if his arguments 
had produced their due effect on both sides, the main ob- 
stacle would have been removed to a treaty between the 
king and his people ; a grievous dissension healed in the 
churches ; and not only the Episcopalians relieved from 
their immediate oppressions, but the opposite party pre- 
served from those severities which, on the restoration of 



44 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

kingly power, were most unwisely exercised against them. 
Meanwhile (and the observation will be found of some 
importance to justify Taylor's consistency,) it plainly fol- 
lowed from his principles, that, in points of themselves 
indifferent, (even granting that it might be tyranny to im- 
pose a rule,) it was causeless rebellion to resist a rule 
already imposed ; and it followed also, (which was still 
more important under the peculiar circumstances of the 
times,) that concession and moderation were to be ex- 
pected at least as much from those who desired a change, 
as from those who were content with the forms and insti- 
tutions of their ancestors. 

Of Taylor's domestic concerns during this interval we 
know very little. I have already expressed my suspi- 
cions that a second marriage was the cause of his with- 
drawing from the king's service ; and it is certain that this 
event must have taken place before the period of which 
I am writing, since, of his three daughters, the youngest 
was married (as appears by the settlement) in 1668. 

This second wife was a Mrs. Joanna Bridges, who was 
possessed of a competent estate at Mandinam, in the par- 
ish of Llanguedor, and county of Carmarthen. Her 
mother's family is unknown ; but she was generally believ- 
ed to be a natural daughter of Charles the First, when 
Prince of Wales, and under the guidance of the dissipa- 
ted and licentious Buckingham. That the martyr's hab- 
its of life at that time, were extremely different from those 
which enabled him, after a twenty years' marriage, to ex- 
ult, while approaching the scaffold, that, during all that 
time, he had never even in thought, swerved from the 
fidelity which he owed to his Beloved Henrietta Maria, 
there is abundant reason to believe, nor are the facts by 
any means incompatible. 

The former, indeed, rests chiefly on the authority of 
Mr. Jones's papers ; but the circumstances which he 
mentions, are in part corroborated by the marriage settle- 
ment of bishop Taylor's third daughter, now lying before 
me in which Joanna Taylor the elder, described as his 
widow and executrix, settles on her daughter the rever- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 45 

sion of the Mandinam property ; while the existence of 
such a property and mansion is confirmed to me by the 
testimony of my kind and amiable friend, archdeacon Bey- 
non. I regret to state, however, that, from the mutila- 
ted condition of the parish register at Llanguedor, and 
from the present circumstances of the mandinam property 
his exertions have failed to procure me any further infor- 
mation as to Joanna Bridges, or her maternal ancestors. 
She is said in lady Wray's letter, to have been brought 
up in much privacy by some relations in Glamorganshire ; 
to have possessed a very fine person, (of which, indeed, 
her portrait, yet preserved by the family, is a sufficient 
evidence) ? and both in countenance and disposition, to 
have displayed a striking resemblance to her unfortuuate 
father. 

But notwithstanding the splendour of such an alliance, 
there is no reason to believe that it added materially to 
Taylor's income. We have seen him, after his first im- 
prisonment, compelled to keep school for his subsistence. 
From the manner in which, when writing both to Evelyn 
and Hatton, he speaks of his "shipwreck," it is probable 
that he was not released from the consequences of his en- 
terprise at Cardigan without a heavy amercment of his 
wife's estate ; and, as his school seems to have been bro- 
ken up by his repeated imprisonments, his chief support 
must have been his literary labours, and the kindness of 
his numerous friends. 

Of these, the most eminent in rank was Richard Vaug- 
han, earl of Carbery, whose seat at Golden Grove was in 
the same parish where Taylor's lot was thrown, and 
whose bounty and hospitality, during several years, ap- 
pear to have been his chief dependance and comfort. 
Though now chiefly remembered as Taylor's patron, 
Vaughan w T as a man of abilities, and in his day, of high 
reputation. He had served with distinction in the Irish 
wars, for his conduct in which he had received the order 
of the Bath ; he had been the principal military comman- 
der on the king's side in South Wales ; and he received 
after the Restoration, the English title of lord Vaughan 
5 



46 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

of Emlyn, together with the appointment of lord presi- 
dent of Wales and privy counsellor. His character seems 
to have been mild and moderate ; and though a loyalist, he 
had many friends among the opposite party. In conse- 
quence after the fatal battle of Marston Moor, he was easily 
admitted to compound for his estates by the parlimentary 
commissioners ; and was thus in a situation which enabled 
him to befriend more effectually such persons of his side 
as had been less favourably dealt with. He married twice. 
The first wife was Frances, daughter of Sir John Altham 
of Orbey, a woman of whom Taylor has drawn, in her fu- 
neral sermon, a picture which, making all allowance for 
the occasion on which it was preached, and the gratitude 
of the preacher, belongs rather to an angelic than a human 
character. The second was Alice, eleventh daughter of 
John Egerton, first earl of Bridgwater, and remarkable as 
being both the subject of much elegant eulogium from 
Taylor, and the original of the "Lady" in Milton's Co- 
mus* In the friendship of this family Taylor found a 
happy asylum ; and it was within their walls, and to their 
family and immediate neighbourhood, that, when the 
churches were closed against his ministry, he delivered 
his yearly course of sermons. 

The next in succession of his literary labours was the 
" Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy 
against the Pretence of the Spirit ;" the appearance of 
which, in its first and imperfect state, has been already 
noticed and which was followed in a very few months, by 
a work of greater bulk, and far more extensive popularity, 
(the first, perhaps, of his writings which was speedily and 
widely popular,) " The Life of Christ ; or, the Great 
Exemplar." 

Of the three parts into which this splendid work is di- 
vided, each has a separate dedication ; an engine of harm- 
less flattery, which Taylor was too grateful, or too poor, 
to omit any fair opportunity of employing. The first is 
inscribed to his friend, lord Hatton, and the second to 

*Note M. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 47 

Mary, countess of Northampton ; whose husband, Spen- 
cer Compton, earl of Northampton, had as it appears 
from some of Taylor's expressions, been engaged, at the 
time of his death, (which took place in the battle at 
Hopton Heath, on the royal side,) in a work of a simi- 
lar character. The third, in the first edition, was dedi- 
cated to Frances lady Carbery ; and after her death anoth- 
er dedication was added, in the third edition, to her suc- 
cessor, the lady Alice Egerton. 

All these dedications are in Taylor's characteristic 
manner. The last was, perhaps the most difficult to 
compose ; and he has contrived in it, with great and sin- 
gular felicity, to offer at the same time, his congratulations 
to the living lady Carbery, and to express his regrets for 
her deceased predecessor. While he compliments his 
present patroness on her own personal advantages, he 
calls her attention, in a solemn and affecting manner, to 
the duties of her new situation and he avows, with cour- 
teous frankness, that her chief claim, thus early in their 
acquaintance, on his own affection and prayers, was her 
being " in the affections of her noblest lord, successor to 
a very dear and most excellent person ; designed to fill 
those offices of piety to her dear pledges which the haste 
which God made to glorify and secure her, would not 
permit her to finish;" and "to bring new blessings to 
that family, which was so honourable in itself and for so 
many reasons, dear to him." 

In the dedication to Hatton, the duty of obedience to 
the " king" is mentioned in a manner which has led Mr. 
Bonney to believe that the Great Exemplar must have 
been written, though not published, before 1648, while 
Charles the first was yet alive. He forgets that the king 
of England never dies, and that a loyalist like Taylor re- 
garded Charles the second as his sovereign, though, at 
the time, under adversity and in exile. 

There is, however, another expression in this dedica- 
tion, by which I am myself considerably perplexed. 
Taylor at the end entreats Lord Hatton to u account him 
in the number of his relatives." Does this mean merely 



48 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

his friends, ox dependents! — oris it to be understood in 
the usual sense of the word, and as Taylor in other pla- 
ces, employed it, to denote an alliance by blood or mar- 
riage ? — An alliance by blood we can hardly suppose ; but 
one by marriage is not impossible. But to ascertain the 
fact it would be previously necessary to ascertain the ma- 
ternal relations of Taylor's second wife, who of the two 
is most likely to have been connected with the Hattons. 

The extensive popularity of the Great Exemplar ap- 
pears to have co-operated with Taylor's natural averse- 
ness from controversy, to determine the character of his 
next publications. 

His works, during three successive years, were entirely 
of a devotional or practical character ; consisting of a 
Sermon on the death of the Excellent Lady Carbery ; to 
which is subjoined a long Latin Inscription, probably not 
intended for her monument, but to be affixed, as usual 
in those days, to her coffin, while lying in state ; — a 
short Catechism for Children ; — his 27 Sermons for the 
Summer half-year; — and his Holy Living and Dying; — 
the two last of which had been composed at the desire 
and for the use of his late patroness, and are inscribed to 
her afflicted husband. 

Controversy, however, was not entirely to be avoided ; 
and, in 1654, the insulting triumph of some Roman Cath- 
olics over the fallen condition of the English church pro- 
voked to re-examine the leading points of difference be- 
tween the two communions, and produced the "Real 
Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, proved against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation ;" 
and dedicated to Warner, bishop of Rochester, a worthy 
and a wise man, who, even in the times of general distress, 
continued, from his scanty means, to assist the still deep- 
er poverty of Taylor, and by whose counsels, as will 
hereafter appear, it had been well, in one instance, if the 
latter had been more implicitly guided. 

The church of Rome might be offended with impuni- 
ty ; but Taylor's zeal for episcopacy about this time in- 
volved him with a more formidable adversary. He had, 



LIEE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 49 

during this year, expanded his " Catechism for Children," 
already noticed, into the beautiful mansion of Lord Car- 
bery, he has entitled " the Golden Grove/' This he 
now published, with a preface, which, though ostensibly 
calculated (and perhaps intended) to conciliate the Pro- 
tector in favour of the persecuted church of England, as 
friendly to established governments, and more particularly 
to monarchy, contained many expressions which were 
likely to provoke, to the utmost extent, both the Presby- 
terian and Independent clergy, and some which Crom- 
well himself might reasonably conceive insidious or in- 
sulting. He was accordingly committed to prison ; in 
what month, or at what place, I have not been able to 
ascertain. Our whole knowledge of the fact is, indeed, 
derived from a letter from the amiable John Evelyn, of 
Say's Court, dated February 9, 1654 ; in which, while 
the writer expresses the anxiety which he had felt on the 
news of his friend's calamity, he congratulates him on 
being again at liberty. # 

When, and under what circumstances, his acquaintance 
with Evelyn had commenced, does not appear. The latter 
speaks of himself as one of his auditors, in a church in 
the city, on the 15th of April, 1654, but with no indica- 
tion that he was at that time particularly interested in 
him. During this spring, however, the acquaintance was 
improved into a nearer and more confidential intimacy. 
Taylor having visited London, w T e find Evelyn, on the 
18th of March, one of a congregation of Episcopalians, 
to whom he preached a sermon on sins of infirmity and 
their remedy ; and, on the 31st of the same month, Eve- 
lyn paid him a visit, " to confer with him about some spir- 
itual matters, using him thenceforward as his ghostly fa- 
ther."! His friendship, indeed,, and his liberality, were, 
from this time, among the chief sources of Taylor's hap- 
piness ; since, besides the remarkable agreement which 
Evelyn expressed with all Taylor's religious sentiments, 
and the countenance and comfort which the latter derived 

♦NoteM. tNoteN, 

5* 



50 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, ».D. 

from the support of one so distinguished for station, loy- 
alty, and piety, his wealth appears to have been adminis- 
tered with no sparing hand, for the support of his con- 
fessor and his family. 

Taylor's troubles, however, were not yet concluded. 
On the 18th of May there is another letter from Evelyn, 
written in great and evident distress of mind, and under 
the apprehension of an approaching persecution, in which 
he pretty plainly intimates that the person whom he ad- 
dresses was again in custody, and in which he urges him 
to publish something for the comfort and guidance of the 
devout laity, who, by the loss of their faithful and ortho- 
dox teachers, were deprived of all outward means of 
grace, not only in the case of preaching and the common 
prayer, but of the orderly administration of the sacra- 
ments.* This letter did not reach Taylor, to all appear- 
ance, for several months after it was written. It certainly 
was not answered by him till the January following ; and 
had probably the same fate with other letters which passed 
at the same time through Royston's hands, being detained 
by him under the impression that a captive would not be 
allowed to receive it. 

Of this second confinement, the scene was, I appre- 
hend, in Chepstow Castle. Its cause does not appear. 
It can hardly have arisen from the same publication which 
had already been visited on him with a similar sentence ; 
and Mr. Bonney's conjecture, that he was suspected of 
being engaged in the unfortunate and ill-contrived insur- , 
rection of Penruddock and Groves, in 1654, as it rests 
on no authority, is rendered improbable by the fact, that, 
subsequent to the suppression and punishment of those 
unfortunate gentlemen, he was, as we have seen, at large, 
and exercising his ministerial functions in London. To 
some supposed connexion with their enterprise, the pre- 
vious imprisonment which I have noticed, and which, till 
the publication of Evelyn's Memoirs, was unknown and 
unsuspected, might be, with greater likelihood, ascribed. 

* Note O. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 51 

And it is certainly not improbable, that though the ground 
alleged, and, perhaps, the immediate occasion of that 
severity, might be the expressions in his Golden Grove, 
— yet the usurping government may have been led to 
notice such expressions, contrary to Cromwell's usual 
and courageous neglect of " paper pallets," by the dan- 
gers of the times, and the character of Taylor as an able 
and distinguished loyalist. It is, however, tolerably cer- 
tain, that either no connexion existed between him and 
the insurgents at Salisbury, or that none such was dis- 
covered by the government, since he would, in that case, 
hardly have escaped so well as w 7 ith a few months' con- 
finement. 

Even his second imprisonment at Chepstow was nei- 
ther severe nor long. In the letter to Warren, published 
with his Deus Justificatus, he says, "I now have that lib- 
erty that I can receive any letters, and send any ; for the 
gentlemen under whose custody I am, as they are careful 
of their charges, so they are civil to my person.' 5 His 
amiable manners, no less than his high reputation for tal- 
ents and piety, seem, at all times, to have impressed and 
softened those who were, from political and polemical 
considerations, most opposed to him. And there is also 
room to suspect, that the estate of his wife was again 
drawn on largely to conciliate the ruling powers ; and that 
these last were content to grant some degree of freedom 
to a learned and holy man, whom they had reduced to 
almost abject poverty. 

Neither imprisonment nor poverty, however, had power 
to cramp the fertility of Taylor's genius, or to deter him 
from the expression of his sentiments, though at the risk 
of offending those whose good opinion was most valua- 
ble to him. Besides completing his Eviavxog, or Series of 
Sermons for the whole year, by the addition of the twen- 
ty-five discourses which, though last published, stand first 
in the volune, he produced, at the beginning of the pres- 
ent year, his c: Unum Necessarium : or, the Doctrine and 
Practice of Repentance ; describing the necessity and 



52 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

measures of a strict, a holy, and a Christian life, and 
rescued from popular errors. " 

In this work he had, as its title implies, expressed him- 
self concerning the nature of original sin, and the extent 
of man's corruption, in a manner, if not unprecedented 
and unwarrantable, at least at variance with the opinion 
of Christians in general, and more particularly of the 
Protestant churches ; and he appears to have felt, and 
not without reason, considerable anxiety as to the man- 
ner in which his work would be received by them. From 
the Calvinists he neither expected nor wished for appro- 
bation ; but, in order to conciliate the favour or soften 
the opposition of the members of his own communion, a 
single dedication did not appear sufficient. Besides an 
epistle to lord Carbery, he has introduced his treatise with 
a preface inscribed to the bishops of Salisbury and Roch- 
ester, and the rest of the clergy of the church of Eng- 
land, in which he strenuously, though with many express- 
ions of humility and submission to his spiritual superiors, 
exculpates himself from the charge of heresy, or of hold- 
ing language inconsistent with the liturgy and articles of 
religion. 

The apology thus made was not, however, thought suf- 
ficient. The letters from Evelyn, already referred to, 
though they prove that Evelyn himself was a convert to 
his friend's opinions, prove also that a considerable alarm 
was excited among the orthodox clergy, not only by the 
supposed danger of the doctrine thus advanced, but by 
the scandal to which their persecuted church would be 
exposed, if the charge of Pelagianism, so often brought 
against it, should receive support from the writings of one 
of its most distinguished champions. Warner addressed 
him in a private letter of expostulation and argument, of 
which we now know nothing except through the answer. 
The venerable Sanderson, too, (who, though honoured 
and courted by the ruling party, had relinquished, for 
conscience sake, the chair of regius professor of divinity 
in Oxford,) though he had by this time abandoned the 
high Calvinistic interpretation of the articles which in his 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 53 

earlier life he had defended, is said to have deplored, with 
much warmth, and even with tears, this departure from 
the cautious and scriptural decision of the church of Eng- 
land ; and to have bewailed the misery of the times, which 
did not admit of suppressing, by authority, so perilous 
and unseasonable novelties. 

The good old man had, perhaps, never read — it may 
be thought, at least, that he had not greatly profited by 
the perusal of — the " Liberty of Prophesying." But it 
would be putting too harsh a construction on his words to 
apprehend that, by the authority which he invoked, he 
meant the civil sword ; or that he desired to employ 
against Taylor any other weapons than those spiritual 
censures which every religious community has a right to 
exercise against its erring members. Be this as it may, 
it was fortunate for Taylor that persuasion and argument 
were the only engines in the professor's power ; and these 
he sought for in two letters to Thomas Barlow, then fel- 
low of Queen's College, Oxford, and librarian of the 
Bodleian, afterwards Sanderson's own successor in the 
see of Lincoln, whom he exhorted, with much earnest- 
ness, though without success, to undertake the refutation 
of Taylor's error. 

Taylor, in the meantime, was not idle in his own de- 
fence. While a prisoner at Chepstow, he produced the 
" Further Explication of the Doctrine of Original Sin," 
which now constitutes the seventh chapter of the "Unum 
Necessarium," but was at first published separately, with 
the dedication to the bishop of Rochester, which still 
accompanies it. 

This tract, indeed, he in the first instance submitted to 
the inspection, correction, or suppression of the prelate 
to whom it is inscribed, in a letter, hitherto unpublished, 
the autograph of which is now before me. Warner (as 
appears from an almost illegible and very imperfect 
draught of his answer on the back) expressed himself, 
perhaps with reason, still unsatisfied ; and refused to re- 
vise a work, which, in fact, was a reinforcement of the 
previous offensive position. The offer, however, is at least 



54 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

an evidence, that, if Taylor were wrong, he was not un- 
willing to be instructed, and that the error of his opinions 
was not rendered more offensive by a self-confident and 
dogmatical temper. With such a disposition he might 
err, but he could hardly be an heretic. The letter is as 
follows : — 

"RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD. 

" My very good Lord, — I wrote to your Lordship 
about a fortnight or three weekes since, to which letter, 
although I believe an answer is upon the road, yet I 
thought fitt to prevent the arrival of by this addr^sse ; 
together with which I send up to Royston a little tract, 
giving a further account of that doctrine which some of 
my brethren were lesse pleased with. And although I 
find, by the letters of my friends from thence, that the 
storme is over, and many of the contradictors professe 
themselves of my opinion, and pretend that they were so 
before, but thought it not fit to owne it, yet I have sent 
up these papers, by which (according to that counsel 
which your Lordship in your prudence and charity was 
pleased to give me) I doe intend, and I hope they will 
effect it, [to] give satisfaction to the church and to my 
jealous brethren : besides, possibly, they may prevent a 
trouble to me, if peradventure any man should be tarn 
otiose negotiosus as to write against me. For I am very 
desirous to be permitted quietly to my studies, that I may 
seasonably publish the first three books of my Cases of 
Conscience, which I am now preparing to the presse, and 
by which, as I hope to serve God and the church, so I 
doe designe to doe some honour to your Lordship, to 
whose charity and noblenesse I and my relatives are so 
much obliged. I have given order to Royston to con- 
signe these papers into your Lordship's hands, to peruse, 
censure, acquit, or condemne, as your Lordship pleases. 
If the written copy be too troublesome to read, your 
Lordship may receive them from the presse, and yet sup- 
presse them before the publication, si minus prodentur* 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 55 

But if, by your Lordship's letters, which I suppose are 
coming to mee, I find any permission or counsel from 
your Lordship that may cause mee to alter or adde to 
what is sent up, I will obey it, and give Royston order 
not to post so fast, but that I may overtake him before 
these come abroad. But I was upon any terms willing 
to be quite of these, that I might no longer suffer or looke 
upon any thing that may retard my more beloved intend- 
ment. 

u My Lord, I humbly begge your blessing upon 
" Your Lordship's most obliged and most affection- 
ate and thankful Servant, 

"Mandinam, November 17, 1655." " JER. TAYLOR." 

From this letter it appears that he was already releas- 
ed from prison, and at his wife's house of Mandinam. 
And since, from his published answer to Warner, annex- 
ed to the " Deus Justificatius," it is certain that he was 
still in Chepstow Castle about the middle of September, 
we may, probably enough, state the duration of his con- 
finement from May to October inclusive. Nor is this the 
only interesting fact which this letter gives us to under- 
stand. It represents him as already considerably advanc- 
ed in the composition of his " Ductor Dubitantium ;" and 
proves to us, through how many years of his life, and 
with what a devoted earnestness, he was employed on 
the work to which he looked forward as the surest pledge 
of his future celebrity. Nor, when we recollect the far 
greater popularity enjoyed by his devotional works over 
this favourite product of his genius and industry, can we 
avoid some painful reflections on the short-sighted esti- 
mate often formed by the best and wisest of mankind, as 
to the celebrity and utility of their different labours. 

The following letter to Evelyn, which has been pub- 
lished by Dr. Bray, was, probably, also written from 
Mandinam. The letters to which it is an answer do not 
appear. 



56 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

"TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. 

" Honoured and Deare Sir, — Not long after my 
coming from my prison, I met with your kind and friendly 
letters, of which I was very glad, not onely because they 
were a testimony of your kindnesse and affections to 
mee, but that they gave mee a most welcome account of 
your health, and (which now-a-dayes is a great matter) 
of your liberty, and of that progression in piety in which 
I doe really rejoyce. But there could not be given to 
mee a greater and more persuasive testimony of the real- 
ity of your piety and care, than that you passe to greater 
degrees of caution and the love of God. It is the worke 
of your life, and I perceive you betake yourselfe heartily 
to it. The God of heaven and earth prosper you and 
accept you ! 

" I am well pleased that you have reade over my last 
booke : and give God thanks that I have reason to be- 
lieve that it is accepted by God and by some good men. 
As for the censure of unconsenting persons, I expected 
it, and hope that themselves will be their owne reproov- 
ers, and truth will be assisted by God, and shall prevaile, 
when all noises and prejudices shall be ashamed. My 
comfort is, that I have the honour to be an advocate for 
God's justice and goodnesse, and that the consequent of 
my doctrine is, that men may speake honour of God, and 
meanly of themselves. But I have also this last weeke 
sent up some papers, in which I make it appeare that the 
doctrine which I now have published was taught by the 
fathers within the first 400 years ; and have vindicated it 
both from novelty and singularity. I have also prepared 
some other papers concerning this question, which I once 
had some thoughts to have published. But what I have 
already said, and now further explicated and justified, I 
hope may be sufficient to satisfy pious and prudent per- 
sons, who doe not love to goe qua itur but qua eundem 
est. Sir, you see how good a husband I am of my paper 
and inke, that I make so short returns to your most 
friendly letters. I pray be confident, that, if there be 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 57 

any defect here, I will make it up in my prayers for you 
and my great esteeme of you, which shall ever be ex- 
pressed in my readinesse to serve you with all the earn- 
estnesse and powers of, 

Deare Sir, 

" Your most affectionate friend and servant, 

" November 21, 1655." " JER. TAYLOR." 

This is a pious and eloquent letter ; but there are some 
parts of it which should serve as a caution to all religious 
disputants. Whatever may be thought of his peculiar 
opinions, there are few who will venture to assert that 
such a man as Taylor either embraced them rashly, or 
professed them without sincerity, or was negligent in his 
applications to the throne of grace for celestial light and 
assistance. The doctrines, however, are, it will be read- 
ily allowed by most men in the present day, (as it was 
seen and deplored by the wisest and most learned theolo- 
gians of the age in which Taylor lived,) irreconcilable 
with the articles of the church which he loved and hon- 
oured, and contrary to the plain sense of those Scriptures 
which were his consolation and his guide. It is even 
probable that he never would have entertained them, had 
it not been for the monstrous and dangerous glosses with 
which the truth had been obscured by Augustine and 
his followers ; by which our nature, instead of being 
" very far gone from original righteousness," is represen- 
ted as become utterly diabolical, and the gracious remedy 
provided for the disease of all mankind is confined to a 
few favoured individuals. 

Yet these doctrines w T hich appear to most of us, as 
they doubtless appeared to Taylor, so offensive to reason, 
and so unworthy of the Deity, were maintained by men 
as wise, perhaps, and certainly as holy, as Taylor himself, 
who, on their parts, regarding with horror his denial of 
absolute predestination, and of the doctrine that infants 
unbaptized were immediate objects of God's anger. Such 
6 



58 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

considerations should not only lead us to think charitably 
of the persons with whom we differ, but should warn us 
against a too hasty condemnation of their opinions. They 
should warn us against supposing the reverse of wrong to 
be right ; and should endear to us still more the mod- 
eration, discretion, and the humility, with which, on these 
lawful and most mysterious subjects, our own excellent 
and apostolic church has expressed l^erself. There is 
yet one caution more. Taylor, as the reader will have 
seen, was confident in the truth of his hypothesis, from 
the persuasion that it manifested the goodness and justice 
of God, and taught men to " speake honour of God, and 
meanly of themselves.' 5 It is probable that, on these 
very same grounds the most vehement of his adversa- 
ries were prejudiced in favour of Calvinism. The infer- 
ence is plain, that though it be sufficient cause to recon- 
sider most diligently and most jealously whatever opinion 
appears to us or to others to militate against our natural 
notions of fitness and general analogy of Divine perfec- 
tions, — yet, is it wise, in all such cases, to suspect that 
our own perceptions may be erroneous, our own reason- 
ing inconsequent ; and that it becomes us to beleive of 
God, not so much what we may think worthy of him, as 
what he has himself revealed concerning his nature and 
his actions. — As a commentator on Scripture, as a guide 
to the interpretation of Scripture, our reason is most use- 
ful and most necessary ; but Scripture, and Scripture 
only, is the rule of faith ; and this is the perfection of 
reason which leads us to adhere most closely to the only 
guide which, in all necessary points of belief, is infallible. 
It appears that Evelyn, during the early part of the 
winter, renewed his application to Taylor, that he should 
undertake some work adapted to the use of Christians 
when deprived of regular ministry and the sacraments, 
which a regular ministry alone can ordinarily dispense 
with efficacy. It appears, indeed, that the former letter 
had been overlooked by Taylor in the pressure of his 
troubles and his studies, till now a second time recalled 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 59 

to his mind, since " the distich of the departed saint" is 
plainly that which is given in Evelyn's letter of May 1655- 
Some other correspondence, besides that which has 
been already noticed, and to which Taylor alludes, as 
containing the " vile distich of the departed saint," must 
at all events have passed, since Taylor, in the following 
letter, speaks of Evelyn's apologies for troubling him, 
and his offers of pecuniary assistance. The Birkenhead, 
whose repartee he mentions, was, probably, John Birken- 
head, author of the " Mercurius Aulicus." The letter 
is now first given to the public. 

" TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQ.UIRE. 

11 St. Pauls Convers. 5 5-6. 

" Deare Sir, — I perceive by your symptoms how 
the spirits of pious men are affected in this sad catalysis : 
it is an evil time, and we ought not to hold our peace ; 
but now the question is, who shall speake ? Yet I am 
highly persuaded, that, to good men and wise, a persecu- 
tion is nothing but a changing the circumstance of reli- 
gion, and the manner of the formes and appendages of 
divine worship. Publike or private is all one : the first 
hath the advantage of society, the second of love. There 
is a warmth and light in that ; there is a heate and zeale 
in this ; and if every person that can will but consider 
concerning the essentials of religion, and retaine them 
severelly, and immure them as well as he can with the 
same or equivalent ceremonies, I know no difference in 
the thing, but that he shall have the exercise, and, con- 
sequently the reward of other graces, for which if he 
lives and dies in prosperous dayes, he shall never be 
crowned. But the evils are, that some will be tempted 
to quit their present religion, and some to take a worse, 
and some to take none at all. It is a true and a sad story ; 
but oportet esse hcereses y for so they that are faithful 
shall be knowne ; and I am sure He that hath promised 
to bring good out of evil, and that all things shall co-op- 
erate to the good of them that fear God, will verify it 



60 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

concerning persecution. But concerning a discourse 
upon the present state of things in relation to soules and 
our present duty, I agree with you that it is very fitt it 
were done, but yet by somebody who is in London, and 
sees the personal necessities and circumstances of pious 
people. Yet I was so far persuaded to do it myselfe, 
that I had amassed together divers of my papers useful to 
the worke ; but my Cases of Conscience call upon me so 
earnestly that I found myselfe not able to beare the cries 
of a clamorous conference. Sir, I thank you for impart- 
ing to me the vile distich of the dear departed saint. I 
value it as I doe the picture of deformity or a devil ; the 
art may be good, and the gift faire, though the thing be 
intolerable ; but I remember that when the Jesuits, sneer- 
ing and deriding our calamity shewed this sarcasme to my 
lord Lucas, Birkenhead being present, replied as tartly, 
It is true our church wants a head now ; but if you have 
charity as you pretend you can lend us one, for your church 
has had two and three at a time, 5 Sir, I knowe not when 
I shall be able to come to London ; for our being stripped 
of the little reliques of our fortune remaining after the 
shipwrecke leaves not cordage nor sailes sufficient to beare 
mee thither. But I hope to be able to commit to the 
presse my first bookes of Conscience by Easter time ; 
and then if I be able to get up, I shall be glad to wayte 
upon you ; of whose good I am not more solicitous than 
I am joyful that you so carefully provide for it in your 
best interest. I shall only give you the same prayer and 
blessing that St. John gave to Gaius ; c Beloved I wish 
that you may be in health and prosper ;' and youre soule 
prospers ; for so, by the rules of the best rhetorike, the 
greatest affaire is put into a parenthesis, and the biggest 
businesse into a postscript. Sir, I thanke you for your 
kind expressions at the latter end of your letter : you 
have never troubled mee, neither can I pretend to any 
other returne from you but that of your love and prayers. 
In all things else I doe but my duty and I hope God and 
you will accept it ; and that by means of his own procure- 
ment, he will some way or other (but how 1 know not 



LIFE OP JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 61 

yet,) make provisions for mee. Sir, I am in all hearti- 
nesse of affection, 

" Your most affectionate friend and 
minister in the Lord Jesus, 

"JER. TAYLOR.' 5 

Taylor's poverty, however, was either not so great as 
he, at this moment? apprehended it would be, or the kind- 
ness of his friends enabled him to enjoy much sooner 
than he had expected, the happiness of their society. 
His acknowledgments to Warner, in the letter already 
given and the letter which now follows to Sheldon, are 
proofs that he had other friends besides Evelyn, both 
anxious, and in some degree, able to render him pecuniary 
assistance. Sheldon, it will be recollected as warden of 
All Souls, had opposed Taylor's election to a fellowship. 
It is pleasing to find them now reconciled. The letter is 
without date ; but the amount of the progress which 
the writer professes to have made in his Ductor Dubitan- 
tium forbids us to place it later. 

"TO DR. SHELDON. 

" Dear Sir, — I received yours, dated November 5, 
in which I find a continued and enlarged expression of 
that kindness with which you have always assisted my 
condition and promoted my interest. Two debts you are 
pleased to forgive me, one of money the other of unkind- 
ness. I thank you for both ; but this latter debt was con- 
tracted when I understood not you and less understood 
myself, but I dare say there was nothing in it but folly 
and imprudence. But I will not doit so much favour as to 
excuse it. If it was displeasing to you then, it is much 
more to mee now that I know of it. 

" Sir, I will be sure, by the grace of God assisting me 

that Mr. Royston shall pay in ten pounds to your nephew 

Mr. Joseph Sheldon, before Candlemass. If you please 

in the interim to send him the bond, or any other power 
6# 



62 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

to discharge me you will much oblige me. But sir I de- 
sire that by a letter from you to me, you will be pleased, 
on the receipt of that money, to disoblige and free my 
duty and conscience, for that is the favour and the peace 
I desire in this particular. Sir, I am to thank you for 
the prudent and friendly advice you were pleased to give 
me in your other letter relating to my great undertaking 
in Cases of Conscience. I have only finished the first part 
yet, the praecognita and the generals. But in that and 
the remaining parts I will strictly observe your caution. 
Sir, though it hath always been my fortune to be an obli- 
ged person to you, and [I] now have less hope than ever 
of being free from the great variety of your endearments, 
yet I beg of you to add this favour, — to think that I am 
all that to you which you can wish, save only that I can- 
not express how much I love and how much I honour you. 
Sir, I beg also your prayers, and the continuance of your 
kind affection to, 

" Deare Sir. 

' Your most affectionate and obliged friend and servant, 

"JER TAYLOR." 

From whatever quarter he obtained the means of his 
journey, it is certain, however, that Taylor visited Lon- 
don ; for on the 12th of April, he dined with Evelyn at 
Sayes Court, in company with Berkley, Boyle, and Wil- 
kins, and occupied with them in the discussion and exam- 
ination of philosophical and mechanical subjects*. Of 
this visit, he fours days after speaks with lively and natu- 
ral delight in the following letter ; in which, however, as 
will be observed, while complimenting the taste of his 
friend, he does not forget to mingle Christian caution and 
rebuke with his felicitations. 

♦Note P. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 63 

"TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. 

"April 16 3 1656. 

" Honoured and Deare Sir, — I hope your servant 
brought my apology with him, and that I already am par- 
doned, or excused in your thoughts, that I did not returne 
an answer yesterday to your friendly letter. Sir, I did 
believe myselfe so very much bounde to you for your so 
kind, so friendly reception of mee in your Tusculanum, 
that I had some little wonder upon mee w T hen I saw you 
making excuses that it was no better. Sir, I came to see 
you and your lady, and am highly pleased that I did so, 
and found all your circumstances to be an heape and un- 
ion of blessings. But I have not either so great a fancy 
and opinion of the prettinesse of your aboad, or so low an 
opinion of your prudence and piety, as to thinke you can 
be any wayes transported with them. I know the pleas- 
ure of them is gone off from their height before one 
month's possession ; and that strangers, and seldome seers, 
feele the beauty of them more than you who dwell with 
them. I am pleased, indeed, at the order and the clean- 
nesse of all your outward things ; and look upon you not 
onely as a person, by way of thankfulnesse to God for 
his mercies and goodnesse to you, specially obliged to a 
great measure of piety, but also as one who, being freed 
in great degrees from secular cares and impediments, can, 
without excuse and allay, wholly intend what you so pas- 
sionately desire, the service of God. But, now I am 
considering yours, and enumerating my owne pleasures, I 
cannot but adde that, though I could not choose but be 
delighted by seeing all about you, yet my delices were 
really in seeing you severe and unconcerned in these 
things, and now in finding your affections wholly a stranger 
to them, and to communicate with them no portion of 
your passion but such as is necessary to hirn that uses 
them or receives their ministers. Sir, Hong truly to con- 
verse with you ; for I doe not doubt but in those liberties 
we shall both goe bettered from each other. For your 
Lucretius, I perceive you have suffered the importunity 



64 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

of too kind friends to prevaile with you. I will not say- 
to you that your Lucretius is as far distant from the se- 
verity of a Christian as the faire Ethiopian was from the 
duty of Bishop Heliodorus ; for indeede it is nothing but 
what may become the labours of a Christian gentleman, 
those things onely abated which our evil age needes not ; 
for which also I hope you either have by notes, or will 
by preface prepare sufficient antidote : But since you are 
ingaged in it, doe not neglect to adorne it, and take what 
care of it it can require or neede ; for that neglect will be 
a reproofe of your own act, and looke as if you did it 
with an unsatisfied mind, and then you may make that to 
be wholly a sin, from which onely by prudence and char- 
ity you could before be advised to abstain. But, Sir, if 
you will give me leave, I will impose such a penance 
upon you for your publication of Lucretius, as shall nei- 
ther displease God nor you ; and since you are buisy in 
that which may minister directly to learning, and indi- 
rectly to error or the confidences of men, who of them- 
selves are apt enough to hide their vices in irreligion, I 
know you will be willing, and will suffer your selfe to be 
intreated, to imploy the same pen in the glorifications of 
God, and the ministeries of eucharist and prayer. Sir, if 
you have Mons. Silhon de V Immortalite de V A?ne, I 
desire you to lend it mee for a weeke ; and believe that I 
am in great heartiness and dearenesse of affection, 

" Deare Sir, 
" Your obliged and most affectionate friend and servant, 

"JER. TAYLOR." 

On the sixth and seventh of the following month,we find 
Evelyn bringing Taylor a young Frenchman, a proselyte 
to the English church and a candidate for orders, for his 
examination and recommendation to a bishop. Taylor, be- 
ing well satisfied with him, did accordingly recommend him 
to some Irish prelate whom Evelyn calls the bishop of 
Meath, then living in abject distress in London, and to 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 65 

whom the fees paid by Evelyn were a matter of charity. 
a To that necessity," he naturally exclaims, " were our 
clergy reduced. "* 

Long after this Taylor does not appear to have re- 
mained in London. His next letter is from Wales, and 
obviously in answer to one now lost, in which the same 
friend to whose regard he was so much indebted appears 
to have offered him, on the part of Mr. Thurland, an 
asylum in the neighbourhood of London. Mr. after- 
wards Sir Edward Thurland, and one of the barons of 
the Exchequer, was an eminent lawyer, and author of 
a work on Prayer ; on which Evelyn sent him a letter, 
published in the interesting collection to which I have so 
often had occasion to refer. His offer, whatever it were, 
seems to have been a liberal one, since Taylor speaks of 
of it as rendering a change of residence not impossible 
to him. The letter is interesting in itself, as displaying 
Taylor's character and sentiments under the pressure of 
a heavy affliction : and it also seems to fix pretty accu- 
rately the appearance of his " Deus Justificatus." 

" TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. 

"July 19, 1656. 

" Deare Sir, — I preceive the greatnesse of your af- 
fections by your diligence to inquire after and to make 
use of any opportunity [which] is offered whereby you 
may oblige mee. Truly, Sir, I doe continue in my de- 
sires to settle about London, and am only hindered by my 
Res august a Domi ; but hope in God's goodnesse that 
he will create to mee such advantages as may make it 
possible ; and when I am there, I shall expect the daily 
issues of the Divine Providence to make all things else 
well ; because I am much persuaded that, by my abode 
in the voisinage of London, I may receive advantages of 
society and bookes to enable mee better to serve God and 
the interest of soules. I have no other designe but it ; 

♦Note P. 



66 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

and I hope God will second it with his blessing. Sir, I 
desire you to present my thankes and service to Mr. 
Thurland ; his society were argument enough to make 
mee desire a dwelling thereabouts, but his other kindnesse 
will also make it possible. I would not be trouble- 
some ; serviceable I would faine be, usefull, and desire* 
able ; and I will endeavour it if I come. Sir, I shall, be- 
sides what I have already said to you, at present make 
no other returne to Mr. Thurland ; till a little thing of 
mine be publike, which is now in Royston's hands, of 
Original Sin ; the evils of which doctrine I have now laid 
especially at the Presbyterian doore, and discoursed it 
accordingly, in a missive to the countesse dowager of Dev- 
onshire. When that is abroad, I meane to present one 
to Mr. Thurland ; and send a letter with it. I thank you 
for your Lucretius. I wished it with mee sooner ; for, in 
my letter to the countesse of Devonshire, I quote some 
things out of Lucretius, which for her sake I was forced 
to English in very bad verse, because I had not your ver- 
sion by mee to make use of it. Royston hath not yet 
sent it mee downe, but I have sent for it : and though it 
be no kindness to you to reade it for its owne sake, and 
for the worthinesse of the worke ; because it deserves 
more ; yet, when I tell you that I shall, besides the worth 
of the thing, value it for the worthy author's sake, I in- 
tend to represent to you, not onely the esteeme I have 
of your worthinesse, but the love also I doe and ever 
shall beare to your person. Deare Sir, I am in some little 
disorder by reason of the death of a little child of mine, 
a boy that lately made us very glad : but now he rejoyces 
in his little orbe, while we thinke, and sigh, and long to 
be as safe as he is. Sir, when your Lucretius comes into 
my hands, I shall be able to give you a better account of 
it. In the mean time I pray for blessings to you and 
your deare and excellent lady : and arn, 
" Deare Sir, 
" Your most affectionate and endeared friend and 
-servant, 

"JER. TAYLOR." 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 67 

The following letter touches on a deficiency in the 
public service of the English church, which has been 
often lamented, but is easier to lament than repair. Tay- 
lor himself, to judge from the few specimens which he 
has given of religious poetry in a metrical form, — for in 
a more enlarged sense of the term, all his devotional 
writings are poetry, — would have fallen into the errors, 
as well as rivalled the beauties, of Cowley. Evelyn, 
though of genius far inferior, (indeed, with all his virtues 
and accomplishments, genius can hardly be said to have 
entered into his character,) would, perhaps, have been 
more fortunate. His ear for music was good, and highly 
cultivated ; he was sincerely pious ; and the general sim- 
plicity of his style would have been in his favour, in an 
undertaking where, by a singular fatality, Addison has 
succeeded better than either Pope, Dryden or Milton. 
The praises of Evelyn's Lucretius which follow, may, 
perhaps, appear exaggerated. But some allowance must 
be made for the partiality of friendship, and the gratitude 
of one who had just received a present from his patron. 
Evelyn's translation, however, is by no means a con- 
temptable work ; and he is fairly entitled to the credit of 
having transfused the sense, if not all the spirit, of his 
original, into harmonious English verses. 

« TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. 

"Deare Sir, — At last I have got possession of that 
favour you long since designed to mee ; — your Lucretius. 
Sir, shall I tell you really how I am surprised ? — I did 
believe (and you will say I had some reason) that Lucre- 
tius could not be well translated. I thought you would 
doe it as well as any one, but I knew the difficulty, ex 
parte rei, was almost insuperable. But, Sir I rejoyce 
that I find myself deceived : and am pleased you have 
so wittily reproved my too hasty censure. Mee thinkes 
now, Lucretius is an easy and smooth poet, and that it is 
possible for the same hand to turn Aristotle into smooth 
verse But, Sir, I pray tell mee why you did so grudge 



68 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

your annotations to the publike ? I am sure you neede 
not blush at them ; but you may well chide yourself for 
offering to conceale them. Sir, you know I was not apt 
to council the publication of this first booke : but I should 
not repine (so the labour of it were over)that it were all 
done by the same hand, so perfectly doe I find myselfe 
confuted by your most ingenious pen. I was once bold 
with you ; I would faine be so once more. It is a thou- 
sand pitties but your English tongue should be enriched 
with a translation of all the sacred hymnes which are re- 
spersed in all the rituals and church bookes. I was 
thinking to have beg'd of you a translation of that well- 
known hymne, 6 Dies irae, dies ilia, Solvet seclum in 
favilla;' which, if it were a little changed, would be an 
excellent divine song : but I am not willing to bring 
trouble to you : onely it is a thousand times to be lamen- 
ted that the beaux esprits of England doe not think di- 
vine things to be worthy subjects for their poesy and 
spare houres. I have commanded Royston to you two 
copyes of a little letter of mine to the countesse dowager 
of Devon : of which, if you please to except one, and 
present the other from mee to your friend Mr. Thur- 
land, you will very much oblige mee, who already am, 

" Deare Sir, 

" Your most affectionate and endeared 

" August 23,-56." " JER. TAYLOR." 



TO THE SAME. 



" November 16, 1656. 

" Honoured and Deare Sir, — In the midst of all the 
discouragements which I meet withall in an ignorant 
and obstinate age, it is a great comfort to mee, and I re- 
ceive new degrees of confidence, when I find that your- 
self are not only patient of truth, and love it better than 
prejudice and prepossession, but are so ingenious as to 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 69 

dare to owne it in despite of the contradicting voices of error 
and unjust partiality. I have lately received from a learn- 
ed person beyond sea certaine extracts of the Easterne 
and Southerne Antiquities, which very much confirme 
my opinion and doctrine ; for the learned man was pleas- 
ed to expresse great pleasure in the reasonablenesse of it 
and my discourses concerning it. Sir, I could not but 
smile at my owne weaknesses, and very much love the 
candour and sweetnesse of your nature, that you were 
pleased to endure my English poetry : but I could [not] 
be removed from my certaine knowledge of my owne 
greatest weaknesses in it : but if I could have had your 
Lucretius when I had occasion to use those extractions 
out of it, I should never have asked any man's pardon 
for my w 7 eake version of them for I would have used none 
but yours, and then I had beene beyond censure and 
could not have needed a pardon. But, Sir, the last pa- 
pers of mine have a fate like your Lucretius, I meane so 
many errata's made by the printers, that because I had 
not any confidence by the matter of my discourse and the 
well handling of it, as you had by the happy reddition of 
your Lucretius, I have reason to beg your pardon for the 
imperfection of the copy. But 1 hope the printer will 
make amends in my Rule of Conscience, which I find 
hitherto he does with more care. But Sir give me leave 
to aske why you will suffer yourself to be discouraged in 
the finishing Lucretius ? They who can receive hurt by 
the fourthe booke understand the Latin of it ; and I hope 
they who will be delighted with your English, will also be 
secured by your learned and pious annotations, which I 
am sure you will give us along with your rich version. 
Sir, I humbly desire my service and great regards to be 
presented by you to worthy Mr. Thurland : and that you 
will not faile to remember mee when you are upon your 
knees. I am very desirous to receive the c dies irce, dies 
ilia! of your translation ; and, if you have not yet found 
it, upon notice of it from you I will transmit a copy of it. 
Sir, I pray God continue your health and his blessings 

7 



70 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

to you and your deare lady and pretty babies ; for which 
I am daily obliged to pray, and to use all opportunities 
by which I can signify that I am, 

" Deare Sir, 

6 c Your most affectionate and endeared servant, 

" JER. TAYLOR." 

In all these letters, it may be observed with how much 
anxiety and uneasiness he contemplated the opposition 
made to his Doctrine of Original Sin, and the remonstran- 
ces addressed to him on the subject by the most eminent 
persons in his own communion. The same feeling is be- 
trayed in the dedication of the " Dues Justificatus," al- 
ready so frequently alluded to ; and which, together with 
a letter addressed to himself by Warner in the course of 
the preceding year, and two letters in answer to that learn- 
ed prelate, he published a short time before the date of 
his last letter to Evelyn. He there enlarges with some 
asperity on the unfavourable reception which his former 
work on Repentance had met with, not only from the 
Presbyterians, but from some of those " to whom he gave 
and designed his labours, and for whose sake he was wil- 
ling to suffer the persecution of a suspected truth." The 
opposition which he had met with, he complains, was not 
open, inasmuch as no man had, as yet, appeared in pub- 
lic against his doctrine, but that there were many who 
" entered into the houses of the rich and honourable, and 
whispered secret oppositions and accusations rather than 
arguments." 

"Madam," he continues, "I know the arts of these 
men; and they often put me in mind of what was told me 
by Mr. Sackvill, the late earl of Dorset's uncle, that the 
cunning sects of the world (he named the Jesuits and the 
Presbyterians) did more prevail by whispering to ladies, 
than all the church of England and the more sober Pro- 
testants could do by fine force and strength of argument." 

The man who writes thus (however he may profess, as 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 71 

he does in another part of the same dedication, that, "if 
any man differed from him in opinion, he is not troubled 
at it/'^and that men " ought to love alike, though they do 
not understand alike,") is evidently suffering under con- 
tradiction which he did not expect, and which he has not 
learned very well to bear. But Taylor was poor and 
persecuted, — neither of them circumstances which im- 
prove the temper. He was, moreover, at this time under 
the pressure of a severe domestic affliction ; and we may 
easily forgive to the afflicted parent a peevishness, which 
is less excusable in a practised disputant, and one who, 
by the promulgation of an unusual opinion, had, as if by 
choice, laid himself open to contradiction. 

The "Deus Justificatus" is the only w T ork which was 
published in this year with Taylor's name, or which can 
be ascertained with any degree of certainty to be his com- 
position. As I have, however, had the misfortune to find 
myself opposed to the judgment of some of my ablest and 
most valued friends, in refusing to the " Treatise on Ar- 
tificial Handsomeness" a place in the present collection, 
it is, at least, my duty to give some account of that work, 
and of the sort of evidence on which it has been generally 
attributed to Jeremy Taylor. 

It first appeared in 1656, in a small volume printed by 
Royston, Taylor's usual publisher, without the author's 
name, and, whimsically enough, adorned with the same 
frontispiece of a woman, with a son on her breast, point- 
ting upwards to heaven, and trampling on a whole toilet 
of ornaments, mirrors and patches, which is prefixed to 
the first edition of " The Ladies' Calling." There are 
even some peculiarities in the method of employing ital- 
ics which correspond with the general practice observed 
throughout that work, and some slight similarities of style, 
though by no means sufficient to lead us to attribute the 
two works to the same author. The preface, indeed, of 
the "Artificial Handsomeness" expressly assures us, that 
this last was not only occasioned, but cheifly composed, 
by a lady, — an assertion which has been thought to be 
belied by the style of the composition and the learning 



72 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.B. 

which it displays. The latter, I confess, does not appear 
to me extraordinary, or, in that learned age, such as 
might not, very probably, have been attained by many 
well-educated females. It chiefly displays it self in a 
readiness in quoting the Scriptures ; in a familiarity with 
the popular ascetic writers of the day, and in a few ref- 
erences to ancient fathers ; to which, it may be observed, 
the fair disputant was guided by the very arguments of 
those English divines whom she endeavours to prove 
mistaken. Still, however, it has not the appearance of a 
woman's composition ; though I must repeat, that a far 
less extent of learning, than was possessed by Jeremy 
Taylor, was competent to all the authorities and illustra- 
tions on which so much stress has been laid, and which 
have been supposed so plainly to designate him as the 
author. 

In 1662, however, while Taylor was yet alive, anoth- 
er edition appeared, with the initials on the title-page, 
" J.T. D. D.," which Kennet (whose critical acumen is, 
indeed, good for nothing, but who is a competent evi- 
dence as to the general opinion which prevailed in his 
time,) supposes to stand for " Jeremy Taylor, Doctor of 
Divinity ; and it is also certain that Taylor employed the 
same signature in the title-page to the first edition of his 
beautiful Essay on Friendship. 

Lastly ; in the epistle dedicatory, prefixed to the third 
edition, in 1701, — it is described as the work of" a late 
learned Bishop," — while Anthony Wood, who though 
like Kennet, utterly without taste or critical discrimina- 
tion, was, still more than him, a diligent collector and care- 
ful examiner of literary history, has inserted it, without 
any apparent scruple, in his list of Taylor's writings. 
And many considerable modern critics have been induc- 
ed, by these reasons and by the supposed striking similar- 
ity of its style to that of his acknowledged works, to sup- 
port his claim to it with a confidence and zeal which, un- 
der other circumstances, I should hardly have thought 
myself justified in opposing. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 73 

On the other hand, it may be observed, that it was by 
no means an unexampled deception in the booksellers of 
the seventeeth century to affix, without sufficient author- 
ity, or even against their better knowledge, the names of 
eminent persons to works of which those persons were 
altogether guiltless. Though Taylor was alive in 166*2, 
he was then in Ireland, and little likely to interest him- 
self in the refutation of a charge which, if he ever heard 
it, he, perhaps would think ridiculous. 

Wood is not consistent with himself in placing this 
work among his writings, since he elsewhere, with equal 
confidence, ascribes it to Gauden ; and my friend, Mr. 
Bliss, whose authority is deservedly eminent on all such 
questions, is disposed to take the credit, such as it is, 
away from both, and to class it among the productions of 
Obadiah Walker. 

On the resemblance or dissimilarity of style, when the 
subject is so different from those which, in other instances, 
have employed Taylor's genius, it would be unsafe to give 
a positive opinion. The whole treatise is undoubtedly, 
an ingenious piece of special pleading in a bad and foolish 
cause ; and it is distinguished by a vivacity of diction and 
illustration which, though it is in some degree a charac- 
teristic of all the satirical writings of that age, may not 
unfrequently remind the reader of the language of Taylor's 
controversial treatises. But, for the occasional bursts of 
passion and sublimity which, in his avovved works, flow from 
him as if in spite of himself: for the ardent piety which 
was inherent in his hourly thoughts and lightest expres- 
sions ; for the strains of affecting eloquence, with which 
lie is ever anxious to draw men from questions of less 
importance to practical devotion and holiness ; we may 
search throughout the " Artificial Handsomeness" in vain. 
Nor are these the strongest arguments against supposing 
him its author. That which with me weighs most of all 
is found in the subject of the work itself which is a for- 
mal defence of painting the face, a practice obviously in- 
consistent with the ascetic opinions to which he was through 

life inclined, and one which he himself, with perhaps 

7 * 



74 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, B.I). 

too great severity, has classed in his " Holy Living/' in 
the same category with " singular and affected walk- 
ing, proud, nice and ridiculous gestures of the body, las- 
civious dressings," and the other least equivocal argu- 
ments of a worldly and immodest character. " Menander 
in his comedy," (he elsewhere observes,) " brings in a 
man turning out his wife from his house, because she 
stained her hair yellow, which was then the beauty. 

iVov 6' eQ7t' an y oixwv Tcode* tjjv yvvauta yaq 
TijV OibcpQov* ov Set Tag rql^ag t-av6ag noisiv. 

A wise woman should not paint. A studious gallantry 
in clothes cannot make a wise man love his wife the bet- 
ter. 

i: 'Eig tovq rqaywdovg XQ^cr^ 9 ova eig rov fiiov y said the 
comedy. Such gaieties are fit for tragedies, but not for 
the uses of life. 

" Indeed, the outward ornament is fit to take fools, 
but they are not worth the taking : but she that hath a 
wise husband, must entice him to an eternal dearness, by 
the veil of modesty and the grave robes of chastity, the 
ornament of meekness, and the jewels of faith and char- 
ity. She must have no fucus but blushings, her brightness 
must be pure c and must shine round about with sweet- 
ness and friendship, and she shall be pleasant while she 
lives, and desired when she dies. If not, 

— Kar6avovaa Ss xslasai 



J Ovds rig ^LVi^ioOvra oidsv "eOOsTai, 

>Ov yaq u£Ti%stg yodwv Tcov Ix IIisQirjg — 

(i Her grave shall be full of rottenness and dishonour, and 
her memory shall be worse after she is dead." Who will, 
after this, believe that Jeremy Taylor can have become 
the patron of ceruse and antimony ? 

On the whole, however, as a report certainly began to 
prevail in his life-time, that he was the author of this 
whimsical treatise, I am inclined to account for this report, 
by ascribing its composition to some one, whose intimacy 
with him was such, as to render it likely that he had seen 
and revised it in the manuscript, or even that he had been 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 75 

an agent in transmitting it to the printer. Nor can I fix 
on any hypothesis more likely, or which accords so well 
with the declaration prefixed to the first edition, as that it 
was the work of Katherine Philips, who was, as will be 
hereafter shown, the Orinda of Taylor's friendship, and 
who had sufficient opportunity of studying his style to 
produce even a better imitation than appears to me to be 
afforded by the dialogue under consideration. To say 
the truth, I little care who may have written it, provided 
it does not pass for Taylor's. * 

The chastening hand of providence was not yet with- 
drawn from Taylor's domestic comforts, as appears from 
an affecting letter which, though the copy in the British 
Museum has no superscription, I am strongly inclined, 
from the internal evidence which it displays of intimacy 
between the parties, no less than the mention of Mr. 
Thurland which occurs in it, to consider as also addressed 
to Evelyn. 

"Deare Sir, — I know you will either excuse or ac- 
quit, or at least pardon mee that I have so long seemingly 
neglected to make a returne to your so kind and friendly 
letter; when I shall tell you that I have passed through 
a great cloud which hath wetted mee deeper than the 
skin. It hath pleased God to send the small poxe and 
fervers among my children ; and 1 have, since I received 
your last, buried two sweet, hopeful boyes ; and have 
now but one sonne left, whom I intend, if it please God, 
to bring up to London before Easter, and then I hope to 
waite upon you, and by your sweet conversation and other 
divertisements, if not to alleviate my sorrow, yet, at least, to 
entertain myself and keep me from too intense and actual 
thinkings of my trouble. Deare Sir, will you doe so 
much for mee as to beg my pardon of Mr. Thurland, that 
I have yet made no returne to him for his so friendly let- 
ter and expressions. Sir, you see there is too much 
matter to make excuse ; my sorrow will, at least, render 
mee an object of every good man's piety and commiser- 

*Note Q. 



76 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

ation. But, for myself, I bless God, I have observed and 
felt so much mercy in this angry dispensation of God, 
that I am almost transported, I am sure, highly pleased 
with thinking how infinitely sweet his mercies are when 
his judgments are so gracious. Sir, there are many par- 
ticulars in your letter which I would faine have answered ; 
but, still, my little sadnesses intervene, and will yet suffer 
mee to write nothing else : but that I beg your prayers, 
and that you will still own me to be, 

"Deare and Honoured Sir, 

" Your very affectionate friend and hearty servant, 

"Feb. 22, 165 6-7." "JER. TAYLOR." 

In this letter, the style and sentiments of which are so 
characteristic, that there can be no doubt of its authentic- 
ity, there are some particulars which call for further no- 
tice. The two children whom he here mentions as tak- 
en from him "by small pox and fevers," must, in all 
probability, have died since the former whose loss he de- 
plored in his letter to Evelyn, of July 19, — inasmuch as, 
in that letter, he does not mention (what he would prob- 
ably have done had the disease been the small pox,) the 
infection, or danger of infection of any other person of his 
family. The tradition, likewise, of the neighbourhood of 
Golden Grove (as I am assured by archdeacon Beynon,) 
concurs with the express statement of Rust, in his fune- 
ral sermon, in stating that Taylor, before his departure 
from Wales, lost three children in the course of a few 
months. It is, however, not a little perplexing that Tay- 
lor here speaks of himself as having "'only one son left," 
while, on the other hand, the letter from his grand-daugh- 
ter, Lady Wray, to which I have already more than once 
referred, stated positively that she had " two uncles," 
who were the sons of her grandfather by his first mar- 
riage, and that both of them lived to manhood ; while she 
is equally positive in stating that their mother died at Up- 
pingham. These are points in which she could hardly 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 77 

have been mistaken, and I know no better or more prob- 
able way of reconciling them to this letter, than by sup- 
posing that the two sons, by his first wife, were at this 
time separated from him and with their mother's family, 
and that the children whose death he laments, as well as 
the surviving son whom he purposes to bring to London, 
and who appears to have been afterwards buried at Lis- 
burn, in Ireland, were the fruits of his second marriage. 
It is strange, however, that he speaks of the son who was 
with him as his only one ; and it is strange, whichever 
hypothesis we adopt, that he does not say any thing of 
his daughters, and that, in none of the letters which are 
preserved, is any direct mention made of either of his 
wives, though there is an allusion of this sort where he 
tells Evelyn that the little child whom he had lost, " late- 
ly made us here very glad.' 5 That he was a cold, or in- 
different husband, or father, I cannot believe, since his 
works abound in allusions to domestic happiness, which 
could have occurred to none who had not felt that hap- 
piness, and been worthy of it. 

"Nothing," he tells us in his c Marriage Ring, 5 "can 
sweeten felicity itself but love. But, when a man dwells 
in love, then the breasts of his wife are as pleasant as the 
droppings on the hill of Hermon, her eyes are fair as the 
light of heaven, she is a fountain sealed, and he can 
quench his thirst, and ease his cares, and lay his sorrow 
down upon her lap, and can retire home to his sanctuary 
and refectory, and his gardens of sweetness and chaste 
refreshments. No man can tell, but he that loves his 
children, how many delicious accents make a man 5 s heart 
dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges : 
their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, 
their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are 
so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that 
delights in their persons and society : but he that loves 
not his wife and children, feeds a lionness at home, and 
broods over a nest of sorrows ; and blessing itself cannot 
make him happy ; so that all the commandments of God 
enjoining a man to c love his wife, 5 are nothing but so ma- 



78 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

ny necessities and capacities of joy. She that is loved, 
is safe ; and he that loves is joyful. Love is an union of 
all things excellent ; it contains in it proportion and satis- 
faction, and rest and confidence ; and I wish that this 
were so much proceeded in, that the heathens themselves 
could not go beyond us in this virtue, and its proper and 
its appendant happiness. Tiberius Gracchus chose to 
die for the safety of his wife ; and yet, methinks, to a 
Christian to do so, should be no hard thing ; for many 
servants will die for their masters, and many gentlemen 
will die for their friend, but the examples are not so ma- 
ny of those that are ready to do it for their nearest rela- 
tions, and yet some there have been. Baptiste Fregosa 
tells of a Neapolitan, that gave himself a slave to the 
Moors that be might follow his wife ; and Dominicus 
Catalusius, the prince of Lesbos, kept company with his 
lady when she was a leper ; and these are greater things 
than to die. 

The traditionary accounts of Taylor, which are yet to 
be recovered in South Wales, agree with Anthony Wood, 
in relating that, after the distressing visitation which his 
letter records, he left his residence near Golden Grove, 
and officiated in a small and private congregation of Epis- 
copalians in London. He appears, in fact, from Evelyn's 
diary, to have been in London some part of this year ; 
since, on the 25th of March, he showed Evelyn his man- 
uscript of the Cases of Conscience, now fitted for the 
press ; and, on June the seventh, we find him officiating 
in the drawing-room at Say's Court, in the baptism of 
Evelyn's fourth son. By his recommendation too, 
(though whether that recommendation was conveyed by 
letter, or in a personal interview, we are not informed,) 
Evelyn, on the 16th of July, used his interest with the 
patron of the living of Eltham, in behalf a young man 
named Moody.* 

But, if Taylor had really fixed himself at this time in 
London, it is remarkable that his visits to Say's Court, 

Note R. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 79 

considering the nature of the friendship between him and 
Evelyn, are not more frequently mentioned ; and, it is 
stranger still, if he were officiating regularly in a small 
congregation of loyalists, that Evelyn has not recorded 
his own occasional journeys to attend the ministry of the 
man whom he calls his spiritual father. And, notwith- 
standing Wood's assertion, I am greatly inclined to doubt 
that he ever permanently settled in the metropolis, though 
his annual visits thither may have easily given rise to the 
opinion. 

It is certain, at least, that in the letter which relates 
the death of his children, he speaks of his intended jour- 
ney to London in terms which imply a relaxation and tem- 
porary escape from afflicting thoughts, rather than a per- 
manent change of residence, or the undertaking of fresh 
duties and a new sphere of usefulness. Be this as it may, 
his poverty was now alleviated by the generous grant of a 
yearly pension from Evelyn, which he acknowledges in 
a letter of most eloquent gratitude, dated the fifteenth of 
May ; but, as usual, without mention of the place whence 
he wrote it. 

"TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. 

" Honoured and deare Sir, — A stranger came two 
nights since from you with a letter, and a token ; full of 
humanity and sweetnesse that was, and this of charity. 
I know it is more blessed to give than to receive ; and 
yet as I no ways repine at the Providence that forces 
me to receive, so neither can I envy that felicity of yours 
not onely that you can, but that you doe give ; and as 1 
rejoyce in that mercy which daily makes decrees in heav- 
en for my support and comfort, soe I doe most thankful- 
ly adore the goodnesse of God to you, whom he consignes 
to greater glories by the ministeries of these graces. But 
Sir, what am I, or what can I doe, or what have I done 
that you thinke I have or can oblige you ; Sir, you are 
too kinde to mee ; and oblige me not onely beyond my 
merit, but beyond my modesty. I onely can love you, 



80 LITE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

and honour you, and pray for you : and in all this I can- 
not say but that I am behind hand with you, for I have 
found so great effluxes of all your worthinesse and char- 
ities, that I am a debtor for your prayers, for the comfort 
of your letters, for the charity of your hand, and the af- 
fections of your heart. Sir, though you are beyond the 
reach of my returnes, and my services are very short of 
touching you, yet if it were possible for me to receive any 
commands, the obeying of which might signify my great 
regards of you, I could with some more confidence con- 
verse with a person so obliging ; but I am obliged and 
ashamed, and unable to say so much as I should doe to 
represent myself to be 

" Honoured^ and deare sir, 

" Your most affectionate and obliged friend and servant. 

"May 15, 1657." "JER TAYLOR." 

The favour which Evelyn as alluded to in the above let- 
ter, had spoken of as in the power of Taylor to confer on 
him he explained in a subsequent note to be one, to re- 
quest which was, in itself, a pleasing mark of friendship, 
and high opinion that he would come to christen his son. 
The answer shows that Taylor was at that time occupied 
in his beautiful Essay on Friendship, and that he had 
communicated his plan to Evelyn. 

" TO JOHN EVELYN ESQUIRE. 

" Honoured and deare sir, — -Your messenger pre- 
vented mine but an houre. But I am much pleased at 
the repetition of the divine favour to you in the like in- 
stances ; that God hath given you another testimony of 
his love to your person, and care of your family; it is an 
engagement to you of new degrees of duty, which you 
cannot but superadde to the former, because the principle 
is genuine and prolific and all the emanations of grace 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 81 

are univocal and alike. Sir, your kind letter hath so 
abundantly rewarded and crowned my innocent endea- 
vours in my descriptions of Friendship that I perceive 
there is a Friendship beyond what I have fancied, and a 
real material worthinesse beyond the heights of the most 
perfect ideas : and I know not where to make my booke 
perfect, and by an appendix to outdoe the first Essay ; 
for when any thing shall be observed to be wanting in my 
character I can tell them where to seek the substance, 
more beauteous than the picture and by sending the rea- 
ders of my booke to be spectators of your life and wor- 
thinesse, they shall see what I would faine have taught 
them by what you really are. Sir, I shall by the grace 
of God wait upon you to-morrow and doe the office you 
require : and shall hope that your little one may receive 
blessings according to the heartinesse of the prayers which 
I shall then, and after make for him ; that then also I 
shall wayte upon your worthy brothers I see it is a de- 
signe both of your kindnesse and of the Divine Provi- 
dence. 

« Sir, 

" I am your most affectionate and most faithful 
friend and servant, 
"June 9, 1657." "JER. TAYLOR." 

The following letter was probably written from Man- 
dinam. It sufficiently indicates the nature of that to 
which it was an answer. It is singular that Evelyn 
should have been harassed by doubts of this kind, and 
still more curious and interesting to see the manner in which 
Jeremy Taylor attempted to solve them. 

" TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. 

"Aug. 29, 57. 

" Sir, — I am very glad that your good nature hath 
overcome your modesty and that you have suffered your- 

8 



82 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

self to be persuaded to benefit the world rather than hu- 
mour your own retirednesse. I have many reasons to 
incourage you and the onely one objection which is the 
leaven of your author, c de providentiae, you have so well 
answered that I am confident, in imitation of your great 
Master, you will bring good out of evil : and like those 
wise physicians, who giving als^cxaxa, doe not onely ex- 
pell the poyson, but strengthen the stomach, I doubt not 
but you will take all opportunities, and give all advanta- 
tages to the reputation and great name of God ; and will 
be glad and rejoyce to imploy your pen for him who gave 
you fingers to write, and will [quaere 6 witt?'] to dictate. 

" But, Sir, that which you check at is the immortality 
of the soule ; that is its being in the interval before the 
day of judgment ; which you conceive is not agreeable 
to the Apostle's Creed or current of Scriptures, assigning 
(as you suppose), the felicity of Christians to the resur- 
rection. Before I speake to the thing I must note this, 
that the parts which you oppose to each other may both 
be true. For the soule may be immortal, and yet not 
beatified, till the resurrection. For to be, and to be hap- 
py or miserable, are not immediate or necessary conse- 
quents to each other. For the soul may be alive, and 
yet not feele ; as it may be alive and not understand, so 
our soule, when we are fast asleepe, and so Nebuchad- 
nezzar's soule, when he had his lycanthropy. And the 
Socinians, that say that the soule sleepes, doe not suppose 
that she is mortal ; but for want of her instrument, can- 
not doe any acts of life. The soule returns to God ; and 
that, in no sense is death. And I thinke the death of 
the soule cannot be defined ; and there is no death to 
spirits but annihilation. I am sure there is none that 
we know of or can understand. For if ceasing from its 
operations be death, then it dies sooner than the body ; 
for oftentimes it does not work any of its nobler 
operations : in our sleepe we neither feele nor understand. 
If you answer, and say, it animates the body, and that is 
sufficient indication of life : I reply, that, if one act alone 
is sufficient to show the soule to be alive, then the soule 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 83 

cannot die ; for in philosophy it is affirmed, that the soule 
desires to be re-united ; and that which is dead desires 
not : besides, that the soule can understand without the 
body is so certaine, (if there be any certainty in mystic 
theology,) and so evident in actions which are reflected 
upon themselves, as a desire to desire, a will to will, a 
remembering that I did remember ; that, if one act be 
enough to prove the soule to be alive, the state of separ- 
ation cannot be a state of death to the soule : because 
she then can desire to be re-united, and she can under- 
stand : for nothing can hinder from doing those actions 
which depend not upon the body, and in which the ope- 
rations of the soule are not organical. 

" But to the thing. That the felicity of Christians is 
not till the day of judgment I doe believe next to an ar- 
ticle of my creed ; and so far I consent with you : but 
then I cannot allow your consequent ; that the soule is 
mortal. That the soule is a complete [qu. complex?] sub- 
stance, I am willing enough to allow in disputation; 
though, indeed, I believe, the contrary ; but I am sure 
no philosophy and no divinity can prove its being to be 
wholly relative and incomplete. But, suppose it : it will 
not follow that, therefore, it cannot live in separation. 
For the flame of a candle, which is your owne similitude, 
will give light enough to this enquiry. The flame of a 
candle can consist or subsist, though the matter be ex- 
tinct. I will not instance Licetus his lampes, whose flame 
had stood still 1500 years, viz. in Tullie's wife's vault. 
For if it had spent any matter, the matter would have 
been exhaust long before that : if it spends none, it is all 
one as if it had none ; for what need is there of it, if 
there be no use for it, and what use if no feeding the flame, 
and how can it feed but by spending itselfe ? But the 
reason why the flame goes out when the matter is exhaust 
is because the little particle of fire is soon overcome by 
the circumfluant aire and scattered, when it wants matter 
to keepe it in union and closenesse : but then as the flame 
continues not in the relation of a candle's flame, when 
the matter is exhaust, yet fire can abide without matter 



84 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

to feed it : for itselfe is matter ; it is a substance. And 
so is the soule : and as the element of fire, and the celes- 
tial globes of fire eat nothing, but live of themselves ; so 
can the soule when it is divested of its relative, and so 
would the candle's flame if it could get to the regions of 
fire, as the soule does to the region of spirits. 

" The places of Scripture you are pleased to urge, I 
shall reserve for our meeting or another letter ; for they 
require particular scrutiny. But one thing only, because 
the answer is short, I shall reply to ; why the apostle, 
preaching Jesus and the resurrection, said nothing of the 
immortality of the soule ? I answer, because the resur- 
rection of the body included and supposed that. 2. And 
if it had not, yet what need he preach that to them which 
in Athens was believed by almost all their schooles of 
learning ? For, Besides that the immortality of the soule 
was believed by the Gymnosophists in India, by Trisme- 
gist in Egypt, by Job in Chaldea, by his friends in the 
east, it was also confessed by Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, 
Thales Milesius, and by Aristotle, as I am sure I can 
prove. I say nothing of Cicero, and all the Latins ; and 
nothing of all the Christian schooles of philosophy that 
ever were. But when you see it in Scripture, I know 
you will no way refuse it. To this purpose are those 
words of St. Paul, speaking of his rapture into heaven. 
He purposely and by designe twice says, whether in the 
body or out of the body I know not : by which he plain- 
ly says, that it was no ways unlikely that his rapture was 
out of the body ; and therefore, it is very agreeable to the 
nature of the soule to operate in separation from the 
body.. 

" Sir, for your other question, how it appears that God 
made all things of nothing ? I answer ; it is demonstra- 
tively certaine ; or else there is no God. For if there 
be a God, he is the one principle : — but, if he did not 
make the first thing, then there is something besides him 
that was never made ; and then there are two eternals. 
Now if God made the first thing, he made it of nothing 
But, Sir, if I may have the honour, tasee your annotations 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 85 

before you publish them, I will give all the faithful and 
most friendly assistances that are in the power of, 

" Deare Sir, 
11 Your obliged and affectionate friend and servant, 

"JER. TAYLOR." 

This letter, undoubtedly, displays, in every part of it, 
a vigorous and richly cultivated mind ; and those argu- 
ments which the writer has taken from Scripture, or from 
his own natural acuteness, are sufficient, in almost every 
instance, to establish the solemn truths for which he is 
contending. Where he fails, he fails from a reliance on an 
unsound philosophy ; from taking those things for granted 
which it is impossible to prove,-— or which are now uni- 
versally abandoned as fabulous. 

Thus, if Evelyn had inquired from what philosophical 
presumption he learned, that the disembodied soul " de- 
sires to be re-united," he would have been only able to 
urge the dicta of men as ignorant as himself, or who reas- 
oned from their present perceptions to what their percep- 
tions should be in a different state of existence, the very 
fact of which was first to be shown before that probabili- 
ty could be determined which he here assumes as proof 
of the premises. The fable of the sepulchral lamp he, 
indeed, hardly ventures to rely on, though he instances it 
in a manner which would lead us to suspect he believed 
it. But, that the flame of a candle might, but for the ac- 
cident of the circumfluant air, continue to burn without 
its fuel, — absurd as it now sounds, is to be laid at the 
door of that division of the four elements which no man, 
before the last century, called in question, — though had 
a sturdy reasoner demanded proofs of " the region of fire," 
of the self-nourished flame of the sun and stars, and the 
other gratuitous assumptions of the ancient system, — the 
philosopher must have been content to hold his peace, or 
to quote, (what indeed was reckoned sufficient,) the mere 
authority of Aristotle or the schoolmen. 

His reasons why St. Paul, in preaching Jesus and the 
8* 



86 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR B.D. 

resurrection to the Athenians, omitted all mention of the^ 
soul's immortality, are, however, abundantly satisfactory. 
And, though far stronger texts might be alledged in sup- 
port of the doctrine than* that in which the same apostle 
is speaking of his heavenly journey, — the probability cer- 
tainly is, even from that text alone, that the apostle him- 
self took the separate existence of the soul for granted, 
and believed it extremely possible for a man to be, and 
think, and even to acquire new ideas, without the assist- 
ance of the body. 

The argument, by which he attempts to prove that 
God created all. things out of nothing, is tainted, in some 
degree, with the fault which I have already noticed, of 
reasoning from propositions as if they were axioms. He 
assumes it as a necessary definition of God, that he is the 
one principle of all things, the only Eternal ; — he then 
argues justly ; that, if there were any thing which God did 
not make, there would be more Eternals than one; — and 
concludes, that in such case, neither of those Eternals 
could be God. Surely this is running on too fast ; and ; 
if Evelyn had been a Manichee to assert the existence of 
two principles, — or if, with Aristotle, he had esteemed 
God as the first Mover only, not the Creator : if, in short, 
on whatever plea, he had denied his friend's definition, — 
a very different and much longer process must have been 
necessary to show the reasonableness of believing, that 
all things, as they depend on God for their being, must 
have, in the first instance, derived that being from his will. 

These are not the only points in which Taylor has,to all 
appearance, forgotten himself in the preceding letter. He 
professes, with much earnestness, to believe, " next to an 
article of his creed, that the felicity of Christians is not 
till the day of judgment." If he said their complete felicity, 
he would have said no more than we are led to believe, 
by the very fact, that we are not, till then , to rejoin our 
bodies, or than the Scriptures imply, in passages too nu- 
merous to be cited. But, by deferring all enjoyment till 
that time, he defers all sensation also, and may be sus- 
pected of adopting the old Socinian doctrine of the sleep* 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 8T> 

of the soul; a doctrine certainly, not inconsistent with its 
immortality, and far less revolting to reason and Christi- 
anity than the materialism which that sect has since em- 
braced ; but which is at variance with all the actions and 
habits of the soul, so far as they fall under our present ob- 
servation, and is plainly contradicted by the most ancient 
traditionary religion of mankind ; by the expectation of 
St. Paul that, on his departure, he was to be with Christ; 
by the expressions of Christ himself, in his parable of 
Lazarus ; and by his promise to the penitent robber at 
his crucifixion. 

It is, after all, by a reference to the law and the testi- 
mony, that the immortality of the soul is most satisfacto- 
rily established. Reason, indeed, may tell us, that the 
extinction of the soul does not necessarily follow the de- 
struction of the body; that, as Taylor himself has well 
observed, it has functions of its own which it may separ- 
ately exercise, and that it may still be conscious of its own 
existence, may still recollect the past, still expect the fu- 
ture, — though deprived of those bodily organs by which 
alone new ideas are to be acquired or old ones commu- 
nicated. But w T hat philosophy holds out as possible or 
probable, revelation alone has rendered certain, and the 
circumstances and employment of departed spirits, m 
that region whence no traveller returns, can be gathered 
from His assurances, to whom all things are known, 
but by whom those things only are communicated to 
men which are necessary to their virtue and consolation. 

The controversy which Taylor had excited by his opin- 
ions on original sin, was as yet by no means at an end. 
The episcopalian clergy seem, indeed, to have been con- 
tent with the sort of official disclaimer of such doctrines 
on the part of the church, the letters of Warner afforded. 
But there were others w 7 ho conceived themselves bound 
to animadvert on the error of so eminent a person, and 
the chief of these were two Presbyterian clergymen, Hen- 
ry Jeanes, minister of Chedzoy, in Somersetshire, and 
John Gaulde, of Staughton, in Huntingdonshire. 

Of Gaule I know nothing but the interminable title of 



88 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

his book, to which Taylor never paid any attention* 
Henry Jeanes, however, was an adversary not unworthy 
of his powers. He was a man of considerable talent, de- 
scribed by Wood as " an excellent philosopher, a noted 
mathematician, and well-grounded in polemical divinity." 
He had been Taylor's contemporary at Oxford, where he 
was celebrated as a powerful disputant, a learned preach- 
er, and zealous against the doctrines ol the Puritans. Of 
those doctrines, however, when their professors became 
prosperous and powerful,he,whether conscientionsly or no, 
yet, certainly, at a time not very favourable to his character 
for disinterestedness, adopted a more advantageous opin- 
ion ; and, in 1641, became distinguished as a Calvinist and 
Presbyterian. Unlike most renegadoes, he continued to 
speak and act with moderation towards the party whom 
he had abandoned ; and was, through life, not more re- 
markable for his talents, than for his freedom from that 
sanctimonious austerity which was the usual characteris- 
tic of his new friends. 

His attack on Taylor's work was not, in the first in- 
stance, intended for publication. In the " advertisement 
to the unprejudiced reader," prefixed to his letters, Jeanes 
accounts for it in the following manner : — 

" One Mr. T. C. [Thomas Cartwright,] of Bridgewa- 
ter, being at my house, brake out into extraordinary (that 
I say not excessive and hyperbolical) praises of Dr. Jer- 
emy Taylor, I expressed my concurrence with him in 
great part : nay, I came nothing behind him in the just 
commendations of his admirable wit, great parts, quick 
and elegant pen, his abilities in critical learning, and his 
profound skill in antiquity : but notwithstanding all this, 
I professed my dissent from some of his opinions which 
I judged to be erroneous : and I instanced in his ' Doctrine 
of Original sin, 5 Now his ' Further Explication' of this 
then lay casually in the window, (as I take it), which 
hereupon I took up, and turned unto the passage now 
under debate, and showed unto Mr. T. C. that therein 
were great nonsense and blasphemy. He, for his own 
part, with a great deal of modesty, forthwith declined all 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 89 

further dispute of the business, but withal he told me that 
he would, if I so pleased, give Dr. Taylor notice of what 
I said : whereunto I agreed, and in a short time, he brought 
me from the Doctor a fair and civil invitation to send him 
my exceptions, and with it a promise of a candid recep- 
tion of them : whereupon I drew them up in a letter to 
Mr. T. C, the copy whereof followeth." 

The controversy thus begun, was like most others of 
the kind, till the parties grew warm, carried on with con- 
siderable courtesy. But the disputants who addressed 
each other, in the first instance through the medium of 
their common friend, Mr. Cartwright, — began as is usual 
in such cases to lose their tempers at the second replica- 
tion. Each accused the other of unfairness and intem- 
perance, and I regret to say that, of the two Jeremy 
Taylor was the most captious and personal. Yet he had 
some reason to complain that his opponent's whole batte- 
ry was directed not against the general principle of 
the book, but against a detached and single expres- 
sion ; — and that his apparent, and, in fact, his avowed ob- 
ject, was not so much to refute the Pelagianism of Tay- 
lor, as to derogate from his reputation in the mind of one 
of his friends and admirers. 

While Taylor was yet in London, he had shown to 
Evelyn his < Ductor Dubitantium' in a state of considerable 
iorwardness. Many years, however were to elapse be- 
fore he actually finished the printing. The importance 
which he attached to it not only as the chief pillar of his 
fame, but as the best evidence of his activity in God's 
service, seems to have rendered him more cautious and 
timid in this than in any other of his literary enterprises, 
and he thought no pains to great, no consideration too 
minute to bestow on its principles, arrangement and exe- 
cution. During this year however he published his 2vt*<- 
§olov HQLxo-nole[iiY.ov^ a reprint of several of his former 
works in folio, (amongst which was his l Liberty of Proph- 
esying,' with the additional arguments against the Ana- 
baptists, and the parable of Abraham;) — andwith which 
now appeared, for the first time, the " Discourse of 
Friendship." This last work was addressed to the Mrs. 



90 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

Katherine Philips already mentioned, the wife of a gen- 
tleman in Cardiganshire, and author of different poems 
and prose works, who having possessed the advantages 
of an easy fortune, an amiable manner, an agreeable per- 
son, and a certain skill in stringing together rhymes and 
compliments, has been handed down to our times, with 
commendations more profuse than any thing which is to 
be found in her published works will, in the present age, 
be thought to warrant. In any age indeed, she would 
have been a " blue-stocking" of distinguished celebrity. 
But the authors of the seventeenth century were habitu- 
ally lavish of their praise on the wealthy and the fair ; 
and "the matchless Orinda," (as she was called, from 
having assumed that name in a long romantic correspond- 
ence with Sir Charles Cotterel,) had reason to esteem 
herself fortunate in having her translations of Corneille 
corrected by Buckhurst and Waller, and her virtues and 
genius eulogized, when living by Taylor, and, after her 
death, by Cowley. Orinda, however, was not usually 
ungrateful, — and, among her published poems is one to 
the noble Palaemon, on his incomparable " Discourse of 
Friendship," which has been generally, but too hastily, 
apprehended to refer to Taylor. Unfortunately, howev- 
er, we learn from another of her compositions, (in the ti- 
tle to which Palaemon is designated by his real appellation 
as well as his nom de guerre,) that he was not Taylor, but 
Mr. Francis Finch, an accomplished gentleman, author 
of several small poems, and who as well as Taylor, ap- 
pears to have written a < Discourse on Friendship.'* 

At the beginning of 1658, we find him again in Lon- 
don, though whether his visit were, in the first instance, 
by choice or compulsion, we must, probably, remain un- 
informed. Certain it is that the first place where we 
hear of him is the Tower, where he was confined on ac- 
count of the indiscretion of his bookseller Royston, who 
had prefixed to his " Collection of Offices," a print of 
Christ in the attitude of prayer. Such representations 

♦Note T. 



LITE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 91 

were then termed scandalous and tending to idolatry, and 
an act had lately passed, inflicting on those guilty of pub- 
lishing them the penalty of fine and imprisonment. Ev- 
elyn, however, whose influence was almost equal with all 
parties in the state, applied, through a friend, to the 
lieutenant of the Tower, insisting on the greatness of 
those services which Taylor had rendered to the cause of 
Protestantism, and soliciting permission that "his learned 
and pious friend," might be admitted to an explanation of 
his conduct.* 

This application appears to have been successful. On 
the seventeenth of the following February, there is a 
letter from Taylor to Evelyn, condoling with him on the 
death of his sons Richard and George, — in which he 
promises to come and see him ; a promise which implies, 
at least, an expectation of being shortly at liberty ; and 
we find him, in fact, eight days after, among the friends 
who visited Say's Court, to comfort its owner under his 
affliction. f Taylor's letter on such an occasion, who is 
there that would forgive my omitting ? 

"TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. 

"Deare Sir. — If dividing and sharing griefes were 
like the cutting of rivers, I dare say to you, you would 
find your streame much abated ; for I account myselfe to 
have a great cause of sorrow, not onely in the diminution 
of the numbers of your joys and hopes, but in the losse 
of that pretty person, your strangely hopeful boy. I 
cannot tell all my owne sorrowes without adding to yours ; 
and the causes of my real sadnesss in your losse are so 
just and so reasonable, that I can no otherwise comfort 
you but by telling you, that you have very great cause to 
mourne : so certaine it is that griefe does propagate as 
fire does. You have enkindled my funeral torch, and by 
joining mine to yours, I doe but encrease the flame. 
1 Hoc me male urit,' is the best signification of my appre- 

* Note U. t Note V. 



92 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

hension of your sad story. But, Sir, I cannot choose, 
but I must hold another and a brighter flame to you, it is 
already burning in your heart ; and if I can but remove 
the darke side of the lanthorne, you have enoughe within 
you to warme yourselfe, and to shine to others. Remem- 
ber, Sir, your two boyes are two bright stares, and their 
innocence is secured, and you shall never hear evil of 
them agayne. Their state is safe, and heaven is given to 
them upon very easy termes ; nothing but to be borne 
and die. It will cost you more trouble to get where they 
are ; and amongst other things one of the hardnesses will 
be, that you must overcome even this just and reasonable 
griefe ; and, indeed, though the griefe hath but too rea- 
sonable a cause, yet it is much more reasonable that you 
master it. For besides that they are no loosers, but you 
are the person that complaines, doe but consider what 
you would have suffered for their interest : you [would] 
have suffered them to goe from you, to be great princes 
in a strange country : and if you can be content to suffer 
your owne inconvenience for their interest, you command 
[commend] your worthiest love, and the question of 
mourning is at a-n end. But you have said and done well, 
when you looke upon it as a rod of God ; and he that so 
smites here w 7 ill spare hereafter: and if you, by patience 
and submission, imprint the discipline upon your own 
flesh, you kill the cause, and make the effect very toler- 
able ; because it is, in some sense, chosen, and therefore, 
in no sense, insufferable. Sir, if you doe not looke to it, 
time will snatch your honour from you, and reproach you 
for not effecting that by Christian philosphy which time 
will doe alone. And if you consider, that of the bravest 
men in the world, we find the seldomest stories of their 
children, and the apostles had none, # and thousands of 
the worthiest persons, that sound most in story, died 
childlesse : you will find it is a rare act of Providence so 
to impose upon worthy men a necessity of perpetuating 
their names by worthy actions and discourses, govern- 

*NoteV. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 93 

ments and reasonings. If the breach be never repaired, 
it is because God does not see it fitt to be ; and if you 
will be of his mind, it will be much the better. But, 
Sir, you will pardon my zeale and passion for your com- 
fort, I will readily confesse that you have no need of any 
discourse from me to comfort you. Sir, now you have 
an opportunity of serving God by passive graces ; strive 
to be an example and a comfort to your lady, and by 
your wise counsel and comfort, stand in the breaches of 
your owne family, and make it appeare that you are more 
to her than ten sons. Sir, by the assistance of Almighty 
God, I purpose to wait on you some time next weeke, 
that I may be a witnesse of your Christian courage and 
bravery ; and that I may see, that God never displeases 
you, as long as the main stake is preserved, I mean your 
hopes and confidences of heaven. Sir, I shall pray for 
all that you can want, that is, some degrees of comfort 
and a present mind ; and shall alwayes doe you honour, 
and faine also would doe you service, if it were in the 
power, as it is in the affections and desires of, 

" Deare Sir, 

u Your most affectionate and obliged friend and servant, 

"Feb. 17, 1657-8. "JER. TAYLOR." 

It would be at this time, if ever, that we should ex- 
pect to find him settled in London. But, except in one 
instance, on the seventh of the following March, when 
Evelyn speaks of himself as attending his preaching and 
receiving the communion from his hands in a private 
house, — we have no instance on record of his exercising 
his ministerial functions. It is probable, indeed, that even 
these rare and clandestine assemblies for religious wor- 
ship were abundantly hazardous to those who officiated ; 
inasmuch as the government of Cromwell, though tole- 
rant enough towards most sects except the Quakers and 
the Episcopalians, never ceased to treat these last with 
great and unmingled severity. The usurper himself was 
9 



94 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

indeed, as is well known averse to such measures and per- 
sonally well inclined not only to many individuals of the 
episcopal clergy, but even to their form of government. 
His inclinations were however, obliged to give way to 
those of the zealots around him, and the whole history of 
the time evinces that, wicked and unwise as was the re- 
taliation which a few years afterwards, the Episcopalians 
inflicted on their opponents, it was no more than retalia- 
tion after all, and what the opposite party, therefore on 
their own principles had no right to complain of. 

The friends of Taylor however, were not unmindful of 
his interests and safety ; and it was perhaps for the sake 
of the last, that during this spring they appear to have 
suggested a measure which at first sight, seems extraordi- 
nary in persons to whom his ministry and his society 
were so dear, and to which nothing but the pressure of 
want or the sense of personal danger can have made Tay- 
lor look forwards with satisfaction. The well wishers of 
Savage, in a subsequent age, were content for the sake of 
maintaining their unfortunate client more cheaply, to as- 
sign him a residence in Wales. The admirers of Taylor 
found a proper soil for his virtues and his matchless talents 
in the northeastern extremity of Ireland. This sugges- 
tion seems to have been made in the first instance to Ev- 
elyn, by Edward, earl of Conway, who had ample estates 
and powerful connexions in the neighbourhood of Lisburn ; 
and, as there is reason to believe, procured for Taylor 
the offer of an alternate lectureship in that borough, with 
a prospect of other advantages. Such an appointment, at 
least and in a distant country, is alluded to by Taylor in 
the following letter. It is plain from Lord Conway's 
own correspondence, preserved among the Rawdon papers 
that he was induced to wish for Taylor's removal to Ire- 
land, by an anxiety that his great talents should be em- 
ployed to the spiritual advantage of his neighbourhood ; 
and as the dates of these letters show that the negociation 
was at that time proceeding it is by no means likely that 
that which follows refers to a different transaction. Its 
mutilated state is the more to be regretted, inasmuch as 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 95 

there are few divines of Taylor's age who would have 
treated the question of usury in a manner so sensible and 
satisfactory. He does not it may be observed mention 
the necessity of taking the covenant as one of the objec- 
tions to the proposed lectureship. How this was to be 
got rid of, I do not know. Perhaps as a lectureship is 
neither a cure of souls, nor, an appointment under govern- 
ment it was not legally necessary ; and where the indi- 
vidual was popular, and supported by powerful friends, 
its omission might be in some cases winked at. 

"TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. 

"May 12, 1658." 

"Honoured Sir, — I returne you many thankes for 
your care of my temporal affaires : I wish I may be able 
to give you, as good account of my watchfulnesse for your 
service as you have of your dilligence to doe me benefit. 
But concerning the thing itselfe I am to give you this 
account. I like not the condition of being a lecturer un- 
der the dispose of another, nor to serve in my semi-circle 
where a Presbyterian and myself shall be like Castor and 
Pollux, the one up and the other downe ; which methinkes 
is like the worshipping the sun and making him the deity, 
that we may be religious halfe theyeare, and every night 
serve another interest. Sir, the stipend is so inconsidera- 
ble, it will not pay the charge and trouble of remooving 
myselfe and family. It is wholly arbitrary : for the tri- 
ers may overthrow it or the vicar may forbid it ; or the 
subscribers may die or grow weary, or poore or be absent. 
I beseech you, Sir, pay my thankes to your friend, who 
had so much kindnesse for me as to intend my benefitt. I 
think myselfe no lesse obliged to him and you than if I had 
accepted it. 

" Sir I am well pleased with the pious meditations and 
the extracts of a religious spirit which I read in your ex- 
cellent letter. I can say nothing at present but this : 
that I hope in a short progression you will be wholly im- 
merged in the delices and joyes of religion and as I per- 
ceive your relish and gust of the things of the world goes 



96 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

off continually ; so you will be invested with new capac- 
ities, and entertained with new appetites : I say with new 
appetites ; for in religion every new degree of love is a 
new appetite : as in the schooles we say, every single an- 
gel does make a species and differs more than numeric- 
ally from an angel of the same order.* 

u Your question concerning interest hath in it no diffi- 
culty as you have prudently stated it. For in the case, 
you have only made yourselfe a merchant with them ; one- 
ly you take lesse that you be secured ; as you pay a fine 
to the Assurance Office. I am onely to add this. You 
are neither directly nor collaterally to engage the debtor 
to pay more than is allowed by law. It is necessary that 
you imploy youre money some way for the advantage of 
your family. You may lawfully buy land or traffique, or 
exchange it to your profit. You may doe this by your- 
selfe or by another, and you may as well get something 
as he get more, and that as well by money as by land or 
goods ; for one is as valuable in estimation of merchants 
and of all the world as any thing else can be ; and 
meethinkes no man should deny mony to be valuable, 
that remembers, every man parts with what he hath 
for mony : and as th£ lands are of a price, then [when] 
they are sold for ever, and when they are parted with 
for a yeare, so is mony ; since the imployment of it is 
as apt to minister to gaine as lands are to rent. Mony 
and lands are equally the matter of increase ; to both of 
them our industry must [be] applied or else the profit 
will cease : now as a tenant of lands may plough for mee 
so a tenant of mony may goe to sea and traffique for me 

Whatever reluctance Taylor may have felt to remove 
to such a distance from his English friends, was over- 
come, however by the prospects held out in the country 
to which he was destined. Dr. (afterwards Sir William) 
Petty, whose survey of Ireland by the command of gov- 

♦Note Y. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 97 

ernment had made him abundantly and most| profitably 
skilled in the extent and value of the forfeited lands, of- 
fered to procure him a purchase on very advantageous 
terms, and reccommended him by letter to several persons 
of talent and influence in that kingdom. He had similar 
letters to the lord chancellor of Ireland ; to the lord 
Pepys ; to Tomlinson the regicide general ; and the lord 
chief baron ; and (what may be regarded as an additional 
proof of his high estimation with all parties in the state) 
even Cromwell gave him a passport and protection for 
himself and family under his sign manual and privy signet. 
It would almost seem that the intrusive government were 
not sorry to remove to a distance from scenes where he 
might be dangerous, a man of so steady loyalty and of tal- 
ents so distinguished*. 

Thus furnished, he appears to have left London during 
the month of June, and, thenceforward, to have divided 
his residence between Lisburne and Portmore, about eight 
miles distant from that town. Perhaps, indeed, he only 
visited Lisburne for the discharge of his weekly lectures- 
ship, since the tradition of his descendants determins him 
to have chiefly, if not always, occupied a house in the 
immediate neighbourhood of his patron's mansion ; and 
to have often preached to a small congregation of loyal- 
ists in the half-ruined church of Kilulta. 

It is in this last named parish that the mansion of Port- 
more then stood, built after a plan by Inigo Jones, in a 
style of almost princely magnificence, of which the sta- 
bles, yet remaining, are a noble, though melancholy ves- 
tige. The park is washed by the great lake of Lough 
Neagh, and by a smaller meer called Lough Bag (or the 
Little Lake), each studded with romantic islets ; to some 
of which, according to the tradition of the vicinity, it was 
Taylor's frequent practice to retire for the purposes of 
study or devotion. Ram Island, in Lough Neagh, and a 
smaller rock in Lough Bag, are said to have been his fa- 
vourites ; the one a mile from Portmore, the other about 

• Note X. 

9* 



98 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D,D* 

half the distance. The first is distinguished by the ruins 
of a monastery, and by one of those tall round towers of 
uncertain use and origin, which are a romantic and char- 
acteristic feature of Irish scenery. The other is still 
more retired and tranquil ; and both have been described 
to me as scenes where a painter, a poet, or a devout con- 
templatist, might alike delight to linger. Retired as the 
situation of Portmore was, his lectureship may have 
afforded an useful employment for his characteristic elo- 
quence ; and he found abundant leisure, in security and 
comparative solitude, for the labours by which his heart 
was divided, his daily and hourly devotions, and the com- 
pletion of his Ductor Dubitantium. 

Poor and dependent as Taylor still continued, this 
was, probably, the happiest part of his life. Both now, 
and when in possession of wealth and dignity, he dis- 
played a natural attachment to the neighbourhood which 
had afforded him such an asylum ; and there are few of 
his letters from Ireland which do not speak of the situa- 
tion of his delightful retirement, with affection, and with 
gratitude to the Providence who had placed him there. 

Of these letters, the first is from Lisnagarvy, as Lis- 
burne was anciently called ; though, even in Taylor's day, 
the appellation was nearly obsolete. Of the sect which 
he describes, I have been able to acquire no further infor- 
mation. # The anxiety which he expresses after literary 
news may be easily understood and appreciated. For 
the rest, I think we may perceive a tone of hilarity in 
his letter which bespeaks a mind at ease, and which is 
remarkably different from the constrained and desponding 
feeling by which many of his former communications are 
distinguished. 

♦Note Y. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 99 

"TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. 

" Lisnagarvy, April 9, 1659. 

" Honoured Sir, — I feare I am so unfortunate as that 
I forget to leave with you a direction how you might, if 
you pleased to honour me with a letter, refresh my soli- 
tude with notice of your health and that of your relatives, 
that I may rejoyce and give God thankes for the blessing 
and prosperity of my dearest and most honoured friends. 
I have kept close all the winter, that I might, without in- 
terruption, attend to the finishing of the imployment I 
was engaged in : which now will have no longer delay 
than what it meetes in the printer's hands. But Sir, I 
hope that by this time you have finished what you have 
so prosperously begun, — your owne Lucretius. I desire 
to receive notice of it from yourselfe, and what other de- 
signes you are upon in order to the promoting or adorn- 
ing learning ; for I am confident you will be as useful and 
profitable as you can be, that, by the worthiest testimo- 
nies, it may by prosperity be remembered that you did 
live. But, Sir, I pray say to me something concerning 
the state of learning ; how is any art or science likely to 
improove ? what good bookes are lately publike ? what 
learned men, abroad or at home, begin anew to fill the 
mouth of fame, in the places of the dead Salmasius, 
Vossius, Mocelin, Sirmond, Rigaltius, Des Cartes, Gal- 
ileo, Peiresk, Petavius, and the excellent persons of yes- 
terday ? I perceive here that there is a new sect rising in 
England ; the Perfectionists : for three men that wrote 
an Examen of the Confession of Faith of the Assembly, 
whereof one was Dr. Drayton, and is now dead, did 
starte some very odde things ; but especially one, in pur- 
suance of the doctrine of Castellio, that it is possible to 
give unto God perfect unsinning obedience, and to have 
perfection of degrees in this life. The doctrine was op^ 
posed by an obscure person, one John Tendering ; but 
learnedly enough and wittily maintained by another of 
the triumvirate, W. Parker, who indeed was the worst of 
the three ; but he takes his hint from a sermon of Dr. 



100 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

Drayton, which, since his death, Parker hath published ? 
and endeavours to justify. I am informed by a worthy 
person, that there are many of them who pretend to great 
sanctity and great revelations and skill in all Scriptures, 
which they expound almost wholly to spiritual and mys- 
terious purposes. I knew nothing, or but extremely little, 
of them when I was in England ; but further off I heare 
most newes. If you can informe yourselfe concerning 
them, I would faine be instructed concerning their designe, 
and the circumstances of their life and doctrine. For 
they live strictly, and in many things speake rationally, 
and in some things very confidently. They excell the 
Socinians in the strictnesse of their doctrine ; but, in my 
opinion, fall extremely short of them in their expositions 
of the practical Scripture. If you inquire after the men 
of Dr. Gell's church, possibly you may learne much : and, 
if I mistake not, the thing is worth inquiry. Their bookes 
are printed by Thos. Newcomb in London, but where is 
not set downe. The Examen of the Assemblie's Con- 
fession is highly worth perusing, both for the strangenesse 
of some of the things in it, and the learning of many of 
them. 

" Sir, you see how I am glad to make an occasion to 
talke with you : though I can never want a just opportu- 
nity and title to write to you as long as I have the mem- 
ory of those many actions of loving kindnesse by which 
you have obliged, 

" Honoured Sir, 

" Your most affectionate and indeared friend 

" and hnmble servant, 

"JER. TAYLOR. 5 

" Be pleased to present my humble service to your 
honoured and worthy brother in Covent Garden. 

" I suppose my servant will wayte on you with this 
letter ; but if he misses you, if you please at any time to 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 101 

write to me, if you send it to Mr. Allestree, stationer at 
the Bell, in St Paul's Church-yard, it will come to me 
safely." 

Whatever were the aids conferred on him by his new 
friends, of which I regret my inability to give a further 
account, they were not sufficient to place him above the 
necessity of Evelyn's yearly pension, which that excel- 
lent man continued to pay, though, as it should seem, 
from narrower means than before, and with some degree 
of inconvenience. Nor was even the solitary paradise of 
Portmore able to exempt him from the peculiar evils of 
the time, and the effects of private malice : a person 
named Tandy, whom Taylor calls " a madman," and who 
appears, by Lord Conway's letters, to have been some- 
thing like an agent to different noble families, out of pure 
jealousy that the newcomer stood more in favour with his 
patrons than himself, and was a more welcome and fre- 
quent guest at their houses, denounced him to the Irish 
Privy Council as a dangerous and disaffected character, 
and, more particularly, as having used the sign of the 
cross in the ceremony of private baptism. Taylor him- 
self does not seem to have been much alarmed, but 
Conway expresses himself on the subject with a degree 
of feeling which does him honour ; and with an indigna- 
tion against the informer, not unnatural in one who con- 
ceived that, in attacking his friend, that informer was 
treating himself with ingratitude. # To this vexation 
Taylor alludes in the following letter, in which, as will 
be observed, he also speaks of the Perfectionists, with 
a degree of interest and curiosity which the sect may 
seem to have been of too little importance to deserve. 

"TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. 

"Portmore, June 4, 1659. 

li Honoured Sir, — I have reason to take a great pleas- 

•Note Z. 



102 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

ure that you are pleased so perfectly to retaine me in your 
memory and affections, as if I were still neere you, a part- 
ner of your converse, or could possibly oblige you. But 
I shall attribute this so wholly to your goodnesse, your 
piety and candour, that I am sure nothing on my part can 
incite or continue the least part of those civilities and en- 
dearments by which you have often, and still continue to 
oblige me. Sir, I received your two little bookes, and am 
very much pleased with the golden booke of St. Chrysos- 
tom, on which your epistle hath put a black enamel, and 
made a pretty monument for your dearest, strangest mir- 
acle of a boy ; and when I read it, I could not choose but 
observe St. Paul's rule : flebam cumflentibus. I paid a 
teare at the hearse of that sweet child. Your other little 
Enchiridion is an emanation of an ingenious spirit ; and 
there are in it observations, the like of which are seldom 
made by young travellers ; # and though by the publica- 
tion of these, you have been civil and courteous to the 
commonwealth of learning, yet I hope you will proceed 
to oblige us in some greater instances of your owne. I 
am much pleased with your waye of translation ; and if 
you would proceed in the same method, and give us in 
English some devout pieces of the fathers, and your own 
annotations upon them, you would doe profit and pleasure 
to the publicke. But, Sir, I cannot easily consent that 
you should lay aside your Lucretius, and having beene re- 
quited yourself by your labour, I cannot perceive why you 
should not give us the same recreation, since it will be 
greater to us than it could be to you, to whom it was al- 
layed by your great labour : especially you having given 
us so large an essay of your ability to doe it ; and the 
world having given you an essay of their acceptance of it. 
" Sir, that Pallavicini whom you mention, is the author 
of the late history of the Council of Trent, in two volumes 
in folio, in Italian. I have seene it, but had not leisure to 
peruse it so much as to give any judgment of the man by 
it Besides this, he hath published two little manuals in 

♦Note A A. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 103 

12mo, Assertionum Theologicarum ; but these speake 
but very little of the man. His history, indeed, is a great 
undertaking, and his family (for he is of the Jesuit order) 
use to sell the booke by crying up the man : but I thinke 
I saw enough of it to suspect the expectation is much 
bigger than the thing. It is no wonder that Baxter un- 
dervalues the gentry of England. You know what spirit 
he is of, but I suppose he hath met with his match : for 
Mr. Peirs hath attacked him : and they are joyned in the 
lists. # I have not seene Mr. Thorndike's booke. You 
make me desirous of it, because you call it elaborate : 
but I like not the title nor the subject, and the man is in- 
deed a very good and a learned man, but I have not seen 
much prosperity in his writings : but if he have so well 
chosen the questions, there is no peradventure but he hath 
tumbled into his heape many choice materials.! I am 
much pleased that you promise to inquire into the way of 
the Perfectionists ; but I thinke L. Pembroke and Mrs. 
Joy, and the Lady Wildgoose, are none of that number. 
I assure you, some very learned and very sober persons 
have given up their names to it. Castellio is there great 
patriarch : and his Dialogue An per Spir. S. homo possit 
perfecte obedire legi Dei, is their first essay Parker 
hath written something lately of it, and in Dr. GelPs last 
booke in folio there is much of it. Indeed, you say 
right that they take in Jacob Behmen, but that is upon 
another account, and they understand him as nurses doe 
their children's imperfect language ; something by use, 
and much by fancy. I hope, Sir, in your next to me 
(for I flatter myselfe to have the happinesse of receiving 
a letter from you sometimes,) you will account to me of 
some hopes concerning some settlement, or some peace 
to religion. I feare my peace in Ireland is likely to be 
short ; for a Presbyterian and a madman have informed 
against me as a dangerous man to their religion : and for 
using the signe of the crosse in baptisme. The worst 
event of the information which I feare, is my returne in- 

•NoteBB. tNoteCC. 



104 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

to England ; which although I am not desirous it should 
be upon these terms, yet if it be without much violence, 
I shall not be much troubled. 

" Sir, I doe account myselfe extremely obliged to your 
kindnesse and charity, in your continued care of me and 
bounty to me ; it is so much the more, because I have 
almost from all men but yourselfe, suffered some dimin- 
ution of their kindnesse, by reason of my absence, for as 
the Spaniard sayes, 'The dead and the absent have but 
few friends.' But, Sir, 1 account myselfe infinitely obli- 
ged to you, much for your pension, but exceedingly much 
more for your affection, which you have so signally ex- 
pressed. I pray, Sir, be pleased to present my humble 
service to your two honoured brothers : I shall be ashamed 
to make any addresse, or pay my thankes in words to 
them, till my Rule of Conscience be publicke, and that 
is all the way I have to pay my debts ; that and my pray- 
ers that God would. # Sir, Mr. Martin, Bookseller, at the 
Bell, in St. Paul's Church-yard, is my correspondent in 
London, and whatsoever he receives, he transmits it to me 
carefully ; and so will Mr.Royston, though I doe not 
often imploy him now. Sir, I feare I have tired you 
with an impertinent letter, but I have felt your charity to 
be so great as to doe much more than to pardon the ex- 
cesse of my affections. Sir, I hope that you and I remem- 
ber one another when we are upon our knees. I doe 
not thinke of coming to London till the latter end of 
summer or the spring, if I can enjoy my quietnesse here ; 
but then I doe if God permit : but beg to be in this inter- 
val refreshed by a letter from you at your leisure, for, 
indeed, in it will be a great pleasure and endearment to, 

"Honoured Sir, 

* Your very obliged, most affectionate and 

humble servant, 

"JER. TAYLOR." 
♦NoteDD. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 105 

In consequence of the information laid against Taylor, 
a warrant was issued to the Governor of Carrickfergus, 
by the Irish Privy Council, to bring him before them for 
examination.* In the minutes of the council no other 
entry occurs relating to him, and it is, therefore, probable 
that his friends had power to obtain his speedy discharge. 
The journey, however, to Dublin, in the heart of winter, 
was sufficient to throw him into a severe illness, which, 
perhaps, was admitted by the government as a plea for 
letting him off more esaily. 

In the letter of Lady Wray, to which I have already 
so often referred, it is said that he about this time, " suf- 
fered much from Sir Phelim O'Nial." But this is, evi- 
dently, a circumstance respecting which her memory had 
deceived her, since that weak and cruel chieftain had 
suffered death some years before Taylor's arrival in Ire- 
land. From his kindred and clan, at this time, a loyalist 
had nothing to apprehend, even if they had possessed the 
power of injuring him ; and the O'Nials, as well as all 
the other Irish Septs, had been completely crushed by 
the dreadful severities of Ireton and Cromwell. In 1666, 
however, the neighbouring county of Tyrone was really 
infested, for some time, by bands of Tories and White 
Boys, and, if Taylor kept a farm, as from various circum- 
stances he appears to have done, it is possible that his 
cattle may, on some occasion, have been stolen ; a cir- 
cumstance which might be easily exaggerated by family 
tradition, till it became, in the narration of his grandchild, 
a persecution by the Roman Catholics. But, if it had been 
any thing considerable, we should have found, in all pro- 
bability, some mention of it in his letters ; and on the 
contrary, I am assured that the traditions of the country 
imply that with the peasantry of that persuasion his 
amiable temper and ascetic habits rendered him an object 
of regard and veneration. 

It was this, perhaps, which gave occasion to a renewal 
of the report of his inclination to Popery, of which he 
complains in his " Letters to Persons changed in their 

*NoteEE. 

10 



106 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

Religion/' which, though not now published, appear to 
have been written about this time. No new work of his 
issued from the press this year, for the " Ephesian Mat- 
ron" is apprehended by Mr. Bonney to have been merely 
a reprint of that story as told in the Holy Dying. The 
following letter, however, was published in the QavcaoXoyia 
of Dr. John Stearne, Professor of Philosophy in the 
University of Dublin ; and is interesting, as being, except 
the interminable Epitaph on Lady Carbery, the only 
remaining specimen of the author's Latinity. The con- 
cluding compliment is lively and elegant. For the rest, 
it cannot be said that he flatters so beautifully in a learned 
language as in English. With the poor book w T hich is 
beslavered with such deglutitious phrases I have no ac- 
quaintance. 

" Viro amicissimo et integerrimo Johanni Stearne, 
Medicinae et Philosophic Professori Doctissimo, ev/aigsLv. 

(i Quam primum earum mihi facta est copia, in schedas 
tuas involaverunt ocuH et mens, amor et acumen, et tota 
quanta est curiositatis supellex, ut discernerem quicquid 
id fuit quod parturiens et ferax ingenium in lucem ho- 
diernam destinarat bono publico. 

" Tarn recte novi ingenium tuum, Stearni doctissime, 
ex monumentis publicis, et privatis praeclarae tuae erudi- 
tionis indicibus, ut difficile non fuerit hariolari quid intus 
lateret in Enchiridio, quod festinantius singularis tua hu- 
manitas praemiserat, enimvero nee falsus fui. Prassensit 
enim animus me in hisce tabulis, ingenii cupedias et bella- 
ria, philosophiae inventa non vulgaria, rationis gltiqov 
kvQtifia, Artis Medicae, quam hodie in Hiberniae metropoli 
adornas, specimen non mediocre : at cum irrueram in 
interloquium, (placide enim et moderate tot TQayt\^aja 
adire, nee enim diffitebor, impos plane fui,) me divinum 
sensi ; et quern praegustaveram, lepide quidem vaticinatus 
qualem perlecturus eram libellum, cum demum aut avid- 
ius, ne totum non exhaurirem, aut pitissans, ne citius 
quam yolueram clauderetur festum, certe mira cum in- 
gluvie non uno modo ordinata, ingessi in animum meum : e f 
tandem ruminans quod delibaveram, sensi clarissime (et 
laetatus sum) scientiae reconditions arcana reserata, ingenii 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 107 

incomparabilis em/e^Q 7 ]! 110 '™' veritatis illustre et ingenuum 
ministerium, et quaestiones nodosas satis, sed nee inutiles, 
quas aut solvisti dextre, aut dissecuisti strenue, in omni- 
bus vel Aristoteli vel Alexandro suppar ; adeo ut non 
ineptum judicaverim gratulari Reipublicas Literariae hoc 
novum emergens decus, imo et tibi in aurem insusurrare 
quam faeliciter Spartam hanc exornaveris ; certe bono 
publico, honori Academiae Dubliniensis, usui et omamento 
literatorum, saluti sedentis et desidis turbae cogitabundo- 
rum hominum, quinimo et inclytae famae tuae. Tantum 
est nihil enim superest, nisi ut te amem, ut legam, ut 
relegam, et ut (quod vovit Socrates in intuitu et specula- 
tione mortis,) ego pro tuis de morte praeclaris lucubration- 
ibus et longaevitatis salutaribus docurnentis nuncuparem 
Galium JEsculapio ; vel potius tibi (quod Apollinis filio 
Heraclides constituit,) eXaiov xqtjptjv xQ v(T n v T0V oydoov. 
Serpentem autem et canem in aede JEsculapii tu cave. 
Etenim non ita pridem sensisti mordacium animalculorum 
morsiunculas. Vale. 

H Ex amaenissimo recessu in Portmore dedit 

"JEREMIAS TAYLOR, 

a S. S. Th, Professor." 

What follows is of a very different character. 

"TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. 

" Honoured and Deare Sir, — Yours dated July 
23d, I received not till All Saints day : it seemes it was 
stopped by the intervening troubles in England : # but it 
was lodged'in a good hand, and came safely and unbroken 
to mee. I must needes beg the favour of you that I 
may receive from you an account of your health and 
present conditions, and of your family ; for I feare con- 
cerning all my friends, but especially for those few very 
choice ones I have, lest the present troubles may have 
done them any violence in their affaires or content. It is 
now long since that cloud passed ; and though I suppose 

♦Note FF. 



108 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

the sky is yet full of meteors and evil prognostics, yet you 
all have time to consider concerning your peace and your 
securityes. That was not God's time to relieve his 
church, and I cannot understand from what quarter that 
wind blew, and whether it was for us or against us. But 
God disposes all things wisely ; and religion can receive 
no detriment or diminution but by our owne fault. I 
long, Sir, to come to converse with you ; for I promise 
to myselfe that I may receive from you an excellent ac- 
count of your progression in religion, and that you are 
entred into the experimental and secret way of it, which 
is that state of excellency whether [whither] good per- 
sons use to arrive after a state of repentance and caution. 
My retirement in this solitary place hath been, I hope, of 
some advantage to me as to this state of religion, in which 
I am yet but a novice, but by the goodness of God, I see 
fine things before mee whither I am contending. It is a 
great, but a good worke, and I beg of you to assist mee 
with your prayers, and to obtaine of God for mee that I 
may arrive to that height of love and union with God, 
which is given to all those soules who are very deare to 
God. Sir, if it please God, I purpose to be in London 
in April next, where I hope for the comfort of conversing 
with you. In the mean time, be pleased to accept my 
thankes for your great kindnesse in taking care of me in 
that token you were pleased to leave with Mr. Martin. 
I am sorry the evil circumstances of the times made it 
any way afflictive or inconvenient. I had rather you 
should not have been burdened than that I should have 
received kindnesse on hard conditions to you. Sir, 1 shall 
not trouble your studies now, for I suppose you are very 
buisy there : but I shall desire the favour that I may 
know what you are now doing, for you cannot seperate 
your affaires from being of concerne to, 

" Deare Sir, 

" Your very affectionate friend and humble servant, 

"Portmore, Nov. 3, 1659." JER, TAYLOR," 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 109 

With such humility did the author of the " Holy Liv- 
ing and Dying" regard his own attainments in religion, 
and such were his impressions of the happiness and con- 
solation, even in this life, conferred by a pure and exal- 
ted piety. If there is something mystic in the tone which 
he adopts, and we are reminded, in spite of ourselves, of 
his previous inquiries concerning the Perfectionists, let it 
be remembered that his subsequent, no less than his pre- 
ceding writings, bear testimony to his freedom from any er- 
ror of the kind ; and that his devotion through life, appears 
to have continued as we have hitherto seen it,however in- 
tense,however unremitted, however (I had almost said) ser- 
aphic, — yet practical, peaceful, energetic, and orderly ; — 
of a kind which, instead of seeking food in visions of 
enthusiastic rapture, or displaying itself in a fantastical 
adoption of new toys and instruments of theopathy, made 
him the better friend, the better parent, the better ser- 
vant of the state, the better member and governor of that 
church which he had defended in her deepest adversi- 
ties. 

Those adversities were now drawing to an end, though 
Taylor could not forsee it, and, as appears from some 
expressions in the preceding letter, w 7 as uncertain whether 
the aspect of the times portended good or an increase of 
evil. His journey to London, how r ever, which we have 
seen him already meditating, and which he again promises 
to his friend and himself, in the letter which stands next 
in the series, was as well timed for his own prospects and 
future advancement, as if he had really been in the secret 
of Monk's intentions. 

" TO JOHN EVELYN ESQUIRE. 

"Portmore, Feb. 10, 1659-60 

u Honoured and deare Sir, — I received yours of 
December 2, in very good time, but although it came to 
me before Christmas, yet it pleased God, about that time, 
to lay his gentle hand upon me ; for I had beene, in the 
worst of our winter weather, sent for to Dublin by our late 
Anabaptist commissioners ; and found the evil of it so 
10* 



110 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

great, that in my going I began to be ill : but, in my re- 
turn, had my ill redoubled and fixed ; but it hath pleased 
God to restore my healthjhope 'ad majorem Dei gloriam;' 
and now that I can easily write, I return you my very 
hearty thanks for your very obliging letter, and partic- 
ularly for the inclosed. Sir ; the Apology you were pleas- 
ed to send me, I read both privately and heard it read 
publikely with no little pleasure and satisfaction. The 
materials are worthy, and the dress is clean, and order- 
ly, and beauteous : and I wish that all men in the nation 
w T ere obliged to read it twice : it is impossible but it must 
doe good to those guilty persons to whom it is not impos- 
sible to repent. Your Character hath a great part of a 
worthy reward, that it is translated into a language in 
which it is likely to be read by very many c beaux esprits. 5 
But that which I promise to myself as an excellent en- 
tertainment, is your ( Elysium Britannicum*.' But, Sir, 
being you intend it to the purposes of piety as well as pleas- 
ure, why doe you not rather call it Paradisus than Elysium, 
since the word is used by the Hellenish Jewes to signify 
any place of spiritual and immaterial pleasure, and ex- 
cludes not the material and secular. Sir ; I know you 
are such a ( curieux,' and withal so diligent and inquisitive, 
that not many things of the delicacy of learning, relating to 
your subject, can escape you ; and therefore, it would be 
great imprudence in me to offer my little mite to your al- 
ready digested heape. I hope, ere long, to have the 
honour to waite on you, and to see some parts and steps 
of your progression : and then if I see I can bring any 
thing to your building, though but hair and stickes, I shall 
not be wanting in expressing my readinesse to serve and 
to honour you, and to promote such a w r orke, than which 
I thinke, in the world, you could not have chosen a more 
apt and a more ingenious, 

"Sir; I do really beare a share in your feares and 
your sorrows for your deare boy. I doe and shall pray 
to God for him ; but 1 know not what to say in such 
things. If God intends, by these clouds to convey him 

♦Note G.G. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. Ill 

and you to brighter graces and more illustrious glories re- 
spectively ; I dare not, with too much passion, speake 
against the so great good of a person that is so deare to 
me, and a child that is so deare to you. But I hope that 
God will doe what is best : and I humbly beg of him to 
choose what is that best for you both. As soon as the 
weather and season of the spring gives leave, I intend by 
God's permission, to returne to England : and when I 
come to London with the first to waite on you, for whom 
I have so great regard, and from whom I have received so 
many testimonies of a worthy friendship, and in whom I 
know so much worthinesse is deposited. 

" I am most faithfully and cordially, 

" Your very affectionate and obliged servant, 

"JER. TAYLOR." 

This journey to London, though probably undertaken 
with no further expectations than of seeing his friends; 
and giving the last inspection to his c Ductor Dubitantium,' 
in its progress through the press, — was propitious to Tay- 
lor's advancement. His name appeared among the sig- 
natures of loyalists in London, and its vicinity, affixed to 
their declaration of April 24, 1660, in which they ex- 
pressed the moderation of their views, and their confi- 
dence in the wisdom and justice of Monk and his gov- 
ernment. He was thus advantageously brought under 
the notice of his sovereign, on his return to the throne, as 
a faithful adherent to monarchy and episcopacy ; and had 
the opportunity of dedicating to him the great work, to 
which his best years had been devoted, — on which, of all 
his compositions, he had bestowed the most time and la- 
bour, the most anxiety and prayer, — and in which, of all 
others, he seems to have pleased himself with the idea 
that he was laying the foundations of his future fame, and 
rendering an acceptable service to the cause of morality 
and religion. 

It may be doubted whether the manner in which it has 
been received has altogether answered these anticipations. 
With all its learning, most widely ransacked and most 



112 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

prodigally displayed — with all its acuteness of argument 
and criticism, its strong practical good sense, and its ad- 
mirable moderation — the " Ductor Dubitantium" has, 
perhaps, been among the least read and least popular of 
his writings. The world have been less anxious to study 
than to talk of and admire ; its object, even at its first ap- 
pearance, was, in some degree, accounted obsolete, and 
its sphere of utility limited ; and while his devotional works 
have found their way into every closet and every cottage, 
his 'opus magnum, 5 reposes on the shelves of our libraries, 
in company with the neglected giants of an earlier day, 
the 6 Summa Sententiarum/ and the writings of Duns 
Scotus. 

How far this neglect is merited or undeserved, — how 
far it is inherent in the nature of his design, or incidental 
to the manner in which that design is executed, — a better 
opportunity will hereafter be afforded for inquiring. I 
will here only observe, that the times in which it appear- 
ed had, in themselves, a natural and inevitable tendency 
to rob the c Ductor Dubitantium' of even its due share of 
popular notice and favour. The country was in a state 
of feverish excitation, which left men little desire, and less 
leisure, to open folios of casuistry. Every body was ag- 
itated by the consciousness of having deserved well or. ill 
of the restored monarch and his family ; and the hopes of 
preferment, — the fears of persecution, — the triumph of 
the loyal, — and the doubts of those few who saw deeper 
into Charles's character, — were succeeded by a long and 
disgusting course of tyranny and civil dissension, and by 
a school of literature and composition, of all others which 
this country has seen the least favourable to genius, and 
the most unlike that style of thinking and expression 
which had distinguished Jeremy Taylor and his contem- 
poraries. 

After the completion of a work of such magnitude and 
importance, it would with most men have been no more 
than was to be expected, that they should suspeiid awhile 
the labours of composition. But the rapidity of Taylor's 
pen was such that it is necessary to mark the fact, that 
only one more work of his appeared this year, — the 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 113 

"Worthy Communicant/' — accompanied by his beautiful 
sermon at the funeral of Sir George Dalstone. The dow- 
ager princess of Orange was at this time in England, on a 
visit of congratulation to her brother ; and the volume is 
inscribed to her in a dedication in which Taylor eulogises 
not only her virtues but those of the king, in a strain 
which may be forgiven to a triumphant loyalist, when 
speaking of a young and graceful monarch,whose dignified 
and prudent conduct under misfortune and whose suppo- 
sed constancy in maintaining against all temptations, his 
allegiance to the Church of England, had inspired hopes 
of a wisdom and piety, which his subsequent conduct but 
too lamentably disappointed. 

The merits which Taylor had to plead with the restored 
government were exceeded by those of few persons in his 
profession. Of all the episcopal clergy, old Sanderson 
alone perhaps excepted, there was none who could com- 
pete with him in the renown of learning and genius. His 
character had remained unsullied by any compliance with 
the factious or fanatical party during the time of their 
greatest triumphs. He had been the object of a more 
than common suspicion and severity on the part of the 
usurping government ; and even his polemical antagonists 
were in the habit of bearing testimony to his blameless 
life, and the ardour of his piety. Whether his union 
with the king's natural sister was known or pleaded, may 
perhaps, be doubted. If it were, it is possible that this cir- 
cumstance may have contributed to determine the scene 
of his promotion : and that Charles was not unwilling to 
remove to a distance a person whose piety might lead him 
to reprove many parts of his conduct and who would have 
a plausible pretence for speaking more freely than the 
rest of the dignified clergy. 

It may be believed, however, that Taylor himself would 
be by no means displeased with his destination, though, in 
some respects a more obscure one than, from the circum- 
stances enumerated, he might have looked for. His fam- 
ily were already in Ireland, and though the Mandinam 
property was now relieved from sequestration, the state 
of his worldly affairs can hardly have been such as to 



114 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

make the expense of removal desirable. To the country 
of his refuge he seems to have felt considerable attach- 
ment : — and the persuasions of the marques, afterwards 
duke of Ormond, who was the great pillar of the episcopal 
cause, and who was extremely and laudibly solicitous to 
fill the sees of his native kingdom with learning and pie- 
ty, would naturally be employed both to forward the ap- 
pointment and reconcile him to it. He was accordingly, 
nominated, on the 6th of August, after the king's return, 
under the privy seal, to the bishopric of Down and Con- 
nor, and shortly after, elected, by Ormond's recommen- 
dation, vice-chancellor of the university of Dublin. 

These situations were very far from sinecures. In the 
university every thing was to be undone and begun anew, 
in consequence of the disorders introduced during the 
time of the commonwealth. The revenues had been 
dilapidated, and the land, in many instances, alienated. 
None of the members then in possession had any legal ti- 
tle either to scholarship or fellowship ; all having been 
introduced by irregular elections, or by the direct inter- 
ference of the usurping government. And as, by the 
statutes of the college, no election could be made but by 
the provost, and the concurring votes of at least four 
seniors, it was proposed by Taylor, that himself, as vice- 
chancellor, — the archbishop of Dublin as visitor, — and the 
new provost who was appointed by the crown, — should 
be empowered by their own authority, to elect seven se- 
nior fellows who were to serve as a nucleus from which 
the society should again take its beginning. Ormond 
however, chose to keep this appointment in his own hands 
though he so far complied with the proposal as to desire 
the vice-chancellor and provost to recommend five per- 
sons who might, by the royal authority be made fellows ; 
and Taylor had in consequence, the satisfaction of procu- 
ring a fellowship for his friend, Dr. Stearne, already men- 
tioned, (though a married man, and, therefore, not statu- 
ably eligible,) on the plea that, in so great a scarcity of 
able candidates, his learning and long acquaintance with 
the college made his presence absolutely necessary. In 
the mean time, Taylor undertook the task of collecting, 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 115 

arranging, revising, and completing the body of statutes 
which bishop Beddell had left unfinished : — in settling 
the form and conditions under which degrees were to be 
conferred : — in appointing public lectures and disputa- 
tions ; — and in laying the basis of the distinguished repu- 
tation which the university of Dublin has since retained, 
in spite of its unfortunate situation in a luxurious metrop- 
olis and the disadvantageous competition which it has been 
compelled to carry on with the elder and more extensive 
establishments of the sister kingdom. 

His labours in his diocese were still greater, and their 
result, at first, far less satisfactory, inasmuch as their scope 
was more extended, and the prejudices against which he 
had to contend were of deeper root, and involved more 
important interests. 

It has happened almost uniformly, in cases of religious 
difference, that those schisms have been most bitter, if 
not most lasting, which have arisen on topics of dispute 
comparatively unimportant, and where the contending 
parties had, apparently, least to concede, and least to 
tolerate. Nor are there many instances on record which 
more fully and more unfortunately exemplify this general 
observation, than that of the quarrel and final secession 
of the puritan clergy from the church, in the year 1662. 
Both parties, in that case, were agreed on the essentials 
of Christianity. Both professed themselves not unwill- 
ing to keep out of sight, and mutually endure, the few 
doctrinal points on which a difference existed between 
them. The leading puritans were even disposed to sub- 
mit to that episcopal government, their opposition to 
which, during former reigns, had created so much distur- 
bance, and had led, by degrees, to such abundant blood- 
shed and anarchy. And it is no less true than strange, 
that this great quarrel, which divided so many holy and 
learned preachers of the common faith, was occasioned 
and perpetuated by men, who, chiefly resting their ob- 
jections to the form and colour of an ecclesiastical gar- 
ment, the wording of a prayer, or the injunction of kneel- 
ing at the eucharist, were willing, for questions like these, 
to disturb the peace of the religious world, and subject 



116 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

themselves to the same severities which they had prev- 
ously inflicted on the episcopal clergy. 

With these men, whether in England or Ireland, there 
were apparently only three lines of conduct for the rul- 
ing powers to follow. The first was the adoption of such 
a liturgy and form of church government as would, at 
once, satisfy the advocates of episcopacy and presbytery. 
This was attempted in vain ; and was, indeed, a measure, 
the failure of which, a very slight attention to the preju- 
dices and animosity of both parties would have enabled a 
bystander to anticipate. The second was that which 
w T as, at least virtually, promised by the king in the dec- 
laration of Breda ; that, namely, uniformity of discipline 
and worship should, for the present, not be insisted on ; 
that the Presbyterian and Independent preachers should, 
during their lives, be continued in the churches where 
they were settled ; ejecting only those who had been for- 
cibly intruded, to the prejudice of persons yet alive, and 
who might legally claim re-instatement ; and filling up 
the vacancies of such as died, with ministers episcopally 
ordained and canonically obedient. In this case it is pos- 
sible that, as the stream of preferment and patronage 
would have been confined to those who conformed, as the 
great body of the nation were strongly attached to the 
liturgy, and gave a manifest preference to those churches 
where it was used ; and as the covenanting clergy would 
have no longer been under the influence of that point of 
honour, which, when its observance was compulsory, in- 
duced them to hold out against it, — the more moderate, 
even of the existing generation, would have by degrees 
complied with their own interests and the inclination of 
their flocks ; while the course of nature, and the increas- 
ing infirmities of age, must, in a few years, have materi- 
ally diminished the numbers and influence of the more 
pertinacious. We have found, in fact, by experience that 
the liturgy has, through its intrinsic merits, obtained, by 
degrees, no small degree of reverence even among those 
who, on other grounds, or on no grounds at all, dissent 
from the church of England, as at present constitued. 
And it is possible that, by thus forbearing to press its ob- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 117 

servance on those whose minds were so ill prepared to 
receive it, a generation would soon have arisen, to whom 
their objections would have appeared in their natural 
weakness, and the greatest and least rational of those 
schisms had been prevented, which have destroyed the 
peace and endangered the existence of the British 
churches. 

But, while we, at the present day, are amusing our- 
selves with schemes of what we should have done had 
we lived in the time of our fathers, if may be well, for 
the justification of these last, to consider how little the 
principles of toleration were then understood by either 
party ; how deeply and how recently the episcopal cler- 
gy, and even the laity of the same persuasion, had suf- 
fered from the very persons who now called on them for 
forbearance ; how ill the few measures which were really 
proposed, of a conciliatory nature, were met by the dis- 
ingenuousness of some of the presbyterian leaders, and 
the absurd bigotry of others,* and the reasonable suspi- 
cion which was thus excited, that nothing would content 
them but the entire proscription of the forms to which 
they objected. Nor can we greatly wonder, that under 
such circumstances, the third and simplest course was 
adopted, — that, namely, of imposing afresh on all a lit- 
urgy, to which the great body of the people was ardently 
attached, and the disuse of which, in any particular par- 
ishes, (when the majority of congregations enjoyed it,) 
was likely to be attended with abundant discontent and 
inconvenience. These considerations are, indeed, no 
apology for the fresh aggressions of which the episcopa- 
lian party were guilty ; for their unseasonable though well 
intended alterations of the liturgy ; and the hostile clauses 
inserted in their new act of uniformity. Far less can 
they extenuate the absurd wickedness of the persecution 
afterwards resorted to against those whom these measures 
had confirmed in their schism. But they may lead us to 
apprehend that, (though a very few concessions more 
would have kept such men as Baxter and Philip Henry 

♦Note HH. 

11 



118 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

in the church,) there would have been very many whom 
no concession w T ould have satisfied ; and that the offence 
of schism was, in a great degree, inevitable, though a 
different course, on the side of the victorious party, might 
have rendered it of less wide diffusion, and of less deep 
and lasting malignancy. 

If a temper thus unfavourable to peace prevailed in 
England, there is reason to believe that in Ireland it was 
still more powerful. Even among the episcopalian cler- 
gy, during the continuance of their establishment, no in- 
considerable leaven of puritanism had been found ; and 
the venerable Usher himself, though during the triumph 
of Calvinism, he saw reasons for altering his sentiments, 
gave encouragement, at an earlier period, by his example 
and his patronage to these unattractive and gloomy tenets. 
But, by the absurd and most miserable rebellion of the 
Roman Catholics, begun in rashness and miscalculation 
by the crazy patriotism of Roger More ; carried on in 
folly and brutal cruelty by the drunken O'Neil, and the 
savage rabble, whom he could neither lead nor control ; 
and suppressed by a system of military tyranny the most 
perfect, the most effectual, the most wicked, and remorse- 
less, of which Christendom affords an example ; — the 
Protestant episcopal clergy had all been swept away from 
that ill-starred kingdom. Their places had been supplied 
by the most zealous adherents of the commonwealth and 
the covenant, who were supported by the majority of those 
who had profited during the merciless system of confis- 
cation which Cromwell had put in practice, and by the 
officers and men of a numerous army, formed in his 
school and under his immediate auspices, whom the gov- 
ernment could neither pay nor discharge,-and who, though 
they had concurred in the restoration of the crown, were 
very little disposed to sanction that of the mitre. 

Already these men had gained confidence by the delay 
which intervened between the royal designation of the 
new bishops to their respective sees, and their solemn 
consecration to the sacred office. And it is probaHe 
that, but for the zeal of Ormond, seconded by his great 
popularity, and by the firmness of the small majority of 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 119 

Irish nobility and gentry, who were attached, by old rec- 
ollections and a sense of recent oppression, to the insti- 
tutions which Calvinism had supplanted, the hierarchy 
and the Common Prayer would have had a similar and a 
yet earlier extinction in that kingdom than in Scotland. 
Fortunately for good taste and rational piety, the friends 
of both were triumphant ; and, more happily still for the 
national honour and prosperity, the restoration of both 
was effected without any of those severities towards dis- 
senters which, in England and Scotland, disgrace the 
annals of Charles the Second. Yet the year 1660 pass- 
ed away without any steps being taken in favour of epis- 
copacy ; and it was only on January the 17th of the 
following year, that two archbishops and ten bishops were 
consecrated by Bramhall, formerly bishop of Derry, and 
now primate, with great pomp and loud exultation of the 
loyalists, in the cathedral of St. Patrick. Of the bish- 
ops, Taylor was one, and appointed to preach the sermon. 
Of his talents, indeed, the government in church and 
state seem to have been fully sensible, and naturally anx- 
ious to avail themselves, since it was he who was also 
called on to preach, on the 8th of May, before the two 
houses of Parliament, and again, before the primate, at his 
metropolian visitation of Down and Connor. 

Honours and preferment were now flowing fast upon 
him. In February he was made a member of the Irish 
Privy Council, and, on the 30th of April, in addition to 
his former diocese, was entrusted with the administration 
of the small adjacent one of Dromore, ''■ on account/ 5 in 
the words of the writ under the privy seal, " of his virtue, 
wisdom, and industry." 

For all these good qualities, and for patience more than 
all, the state of his dioceses afforded him, indeed, abund- 
ant occasion. It was in this part of Ireland, more than 
any other, that the clearance of the episcopalian clergy 
had been most effectual, and that their places had been 
supplied by the sturdiest champions of the covenant, 
taken for the most part from the west of Scotland, — dis- 
ciples of Cameron, Renwick, and Peden, and professing, 
in the wildest and most gloomy sense, the austere princi- 



120 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

pies of their party. Such men as these, more prejudiced 
in proportion as they were worse educated than the other 
adherants of Calvin, were neither to be impressed by the 
zeal with which the new prelate discharged the duties of 
his station, nor softened by the tenderness and charity 
^expressed in his deportment towards themselves. It was 
in vain, so far as they were concerned, that he preached 
every Sunday in different churches of his diocese ; that 
he invited his clergy to friendly conferences ; that he 
personally called at their houses ; employed the good 
offices of pious laymen of their own persuasion, and offer- 
ed his best endeavours to give satisfaction or obtain relief 
for their scruples. 

In answer to these advances, the pulpits resounded 
with exhortations to stand by the covenant even unto 
blood ; with bitter invectives against the episcopal order, 
and against Taylor more particularly ; while the preach- 
ers entered into a new engagement among themselves, 
" to speak with no bishop, and to endure neither their 
government nor their persons." The virtues and elo- 
quence of Taylor, however, were not without effect on 
the laity, who were, at the same time, offended by the 
refusal of their pastors to attend a public conference. 
The nobility and gentry of the three dioceses, with one 
single exception, came over, by degrees, to the bishop's 
side ; and we are even assured by Carte, that, during the 
two years which intervened before the enforcement of 
the Act of Uniformity, the great majority of the minis- 
ters themselves had yielded, if not to his arguments, to 
his persevering kindness and Christian example. 

In the mean time, however, some traces of disappoint- 
ment and irritation are, I think, perceivable in his sermon 
before the two houses of Parliament. He there inveighs 
with some asperity against such as thought it a less sin to 
stand in separation from the church, than to stand in a 
clean white garment : and observes, that " we have seen 
the vilest part of mankind, men that have done things so 
horrid, worse than which the sun never saw, yet pre- 
tend tender consciences against ecclesiastical laws." 
He urges, forcibly and ably, that, in things indifferent or 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 121 

doubtful, it must be safe to follow the decision of our 
superiors ; that, in all cases, obedience is free from those 
results which are the greatest aggravation of the crime of 
heresy, and that, therefore, in the great majority of cases, 
dissent is more dangerous than conformity. He presses 
the consideration that no laws can stand at all, if all who 
dislike them may plead conscience as an exemption ; and 
he presses also, (what is easily said in the case of our 
brother, but what every man in his own case receives 
with difficulty,) that they who dislike the discipline of a 
church are at liberty to resign their preferments. 

We shall do him an injustice, however, if we suppose 
him to hold these doctrines without qualification ; with- 
out allowances for invincible prejudice, for human infir- 
mity, and the many other considerations which must be 
taken into account in every reformation or return to orig- 
inal principles. On the contrary, he expresses a hope 
that, in all measures to be adopted for the government of 
the church, wherever " weak brethren shall still plead for 
toleration and compliance, the bishops would consider 
where it can do good and do no harm ; where they are 
premitted, and where they are themselves tied up by the 
laws ; and, in all things where it is safe and holy, to 
labour to give them ease and bring them remedy." 

And there is one circumstance which it is absolutely 
necessary to bear in mind while forming our opinion on 
this part of Taylor's conduct ; that, namely, the obedi- 
ence which he claims, as due to the laws of ecclesiastical 
superiors, is that obedience only which is paid by the 
members of their own communion. It is, in fact, no 
more than the privilege (which every Christian society 
exerts, and must exert for its own preservation,) to have 
the offices of its ministry supplied by such men as con- 
form to the regulations imposed by the body at large, or 
those to whom its powers are delegated. 

On toleration, properly so called, in its civil sense and 
on its broadest foundation, he has, in this discourse, said 
nothing at variance with his " Liberty of Prophesying," 
And so far is any thing which he here advances from 
sanctioning those penal enactments which the jealousy of 
11* 



122 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

succeeding parliaments directed against the professors of 
other creeds, that his main argument proceeds on the sup- 
position that sects who could not agree might charitably 
differ. The model, in short, of mutnal forbearance, 
which he proposed to his countrymen, was the same with 
that exhibited by the ruling and notoriously tolerant 
churches of Geneva, Switzerland, and the Low Coun- 
tries, who arranged their own internal concerns as they 
themselves thought most expedient, but who never 
attempted to disturb the liberties of those who conscien- 
tiously forsook their communion. 

And if, in an orator of Taylor's principles, a more def- 
inite caution is required against the crime of religious, 
persecution, let it be remembered, that he could not have 
foreseen the temper in which the work now begun was 
afterwards carried on and completed. The declarations 
of the king had hitherto breathed nothing but conciliation 
and indulgence to weak consciences ; and, from the 
known principles of many of the leading characters of 
the Irish Parliament, the episcopalians of that nation, in 
particular, had no reason to apprehend that too little 
regard would be shown to the wishes of the puritans. 

One subject there was, however, on which an abund- 
ant share of the Christian virtues of disinterestedness, 
forgiveness, justice, and compassion, was no more than 
necessary to guide his auditors to a right decision ; — a 
decision in which the interests and even existence of 
many thousand families were implicated, and which some 
of the worst and strongest feelings of avarice, party spirit, 
and deeply rooted hostilities, conspired to pervert or em- 
barrass. I mean the question of the Irish confiscated 
estates, on which it is gratifying to find Taylor speaking 
with the discrimination of one who well understood the 
affairs of that kingdom, no less than with that authority 
and earnestness which it becomes a Christian bishop to 
display on the side of the oppressed and unfortunate. 

" Ye cannot obey God unless you do justice : for this 
also 'is better than sacrifice/ said Solomon. For Christ, 
who is the sun of righteousness, is a sun and shield to 
them that do righteously. The Indian was not immured 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 123 

sufficiently by the Atlantic sea, nor the Bosphoran by 
the walls of ice, nor the Arabian by his meridian sun : 
the Christian justice of the Roman princes brake through 
all enclosures, and by justice, set up Christ's standard, 
and gave to all the world a testimony how much could be 
done by prudence and valour, when they were conducted 
by the hands of justice : and now you will have a great 
trial of this part of your obedience to God. 

" For you are to give sentence in the causes of half a 
nation : and he had need to be a wise and a good man 
that divides the inheritance amongst brethren ; that he 
may not be abused by contrary pretences, — nor biassed by 
the interest of friends, — nor transported with the unjust 
thoughts even of a just revenge, — nor allured by the 
opportunities of spoil, — nor turned aside by partiality in 
his own concerns, — nor blinded by gold which puts out the 
eyes of wise men, — nor cozened by pretended zeal, — nor 
wearied with the difficulty of questions, — nor directed by 
a general measure in cases not measurable by it, — nor 
borne down by prejudice, — nor abused by resolutions ta- 
ken before the cause be heard, — nor overruled by nation- 
al interests. For justice ought to be the simplest thing 
in the world, and is to be measured by nothing but by 
truth, and by laws, and by the degrees of princes. But, 
whatever you do, let not the pretence of a different relig- 
ion make you think it lawful to oppress any man in his 
just rights ; for opinions are not, but laws only, and 'do- 
ing as we would be done to,' are the measures of justice : 
and, though justice does alike to oilmen, Jew and Chris- 
tian, Lutheran and Calvinist ; yet, to do light to them 
that are of another opinion is the way to win them : but 
if you, for conscience sake do them wrong, they will hate 
both you and your religion. 

" Lastly ; as < obedience is better than sacrifice/ so 
God also said, <I will have mercy and not sacrifice;' 
meaning that mercy is the best obedience. i Perierat to- 
tum quod Deus fecerat, nisi misericordia subvenisset,' said 
Chrysologus : all the creatures both in heaven and earth 
would perish, if mercy did not relieve us all. Other good 
things, more or less, every man expects according to the 



124 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. t>. 

portion of his fortune. ' Ex dementia omnes idem sper- 
ant ;' but from mercy and clemency all the world alike 
do expect advantages. And which of us all stands here 
this day, that does not need God's pardon and the king's? 
Surely no man is so much pleased with his own inno- 
cence, as that he will be willing to quit his claim to mer- 
cy, and, if we all need it, let us all show it. 

{C Naturse imperio gemimus, cum funus adultae 
Virginis occur r it, vel terra clauditur infans 
Et minor igne rogi !" 

" If you do but see a maiden carried to her grave a 
little before her intended marriage, or an infant die before 
the birth of reason, nature has taught us to pay a tribu- 
tary tear. Alas ! your eyes will behold the ruin of many 
families, which, though they sadly have deserved, yet 
mercy is not delighted with the spectacle ; and therefore 
God places a watery cloud in the eye, that, when the 
light of heaven shines on it, it may produce a rainbow, 
to be a sacrament and a memorial that God and the sons 
of God do not love to see a man perish. God never re- 
joices in the death of him that dies, and we also esteem 
it indecent to have music at a funeral. And as religion 
teaches us to pity a condemned criminal, so mercy inter- 
cedes for the most benign interpretation of the laws. 
You must, indeed, be as just as the laivs : and you must 
be as merciful as your religion : and you have no way to 
tie these together, but to follow the pattern in the mount ; 
do as God does, who in judgment remembers mercy ! " 

Occupied as Taylor now was, his contributions to the 
press were not likely to be frequent or considerable, and, 
except his Consecration Sermon, his Sermon before the 
Parliament, and a small manual of rules for his clergy,) 
of whom, it hence appears, he had already reconciled no 
inconsiderable number,) we are acquainted with no other 
publications of his during this year. These he mentions 
more slightly than they deserve in the following letter. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 125 

"TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. 

"Dublin, November, 16, 1661. 

" Deare Sir, — Your own worthiness and the obliga- 
tions you have so often passed upon me have imprinted 
in me so great a value and kindnesse to your person, that 
I thinke myselfe not a little concerned in yourselfe and all 
your relations, and all the great accidents of your life. 
Doe not therefore think me either impertinent or other- 
wise without employment, if I doe with some care and 
earnestness inquire into your health and the present con- 
dition of your affaires. Sir, when shal we expect your 
" Terrestrial Paradise,' your excellent observations and 
discourses of gardens, of which I had a little posy present- 
ed to me by your own kind hand : and makes me long for 
more. Sir, I, and all that understand excellent fancy, lan- 
guage and deepest loyalty, are bound to value your ex- 
cellent panegyric, which I saw and read with pleasure. 
I am pleased to read your excellent mind in so excellent 
[an] idea ; for as a father in his son's face, so is a man's 
soule imprinted in all the pieces that he labours. Sir, I 
am so full of publicke concernes and the troubles of bus- 
iness in my diocese, that I cannot yet have leisure to think 
of much of my old delightful imployment. But I hope 
I have brought my affaires almost to a consistance, and 
then I may returne again e. Royston (the bookseller) 
hath two Sermons and a little Collection of Rules for my 
Clergy, which had beene presented to you if I had 
thought [them] fit for notice, or to send to my dearest 
friends. 

" Dear Sir, I pray let me hear from you as often as you 
can, for you will very much oblige me, if you will con- 
tinue to love me still. I pray give my love and deare re- 
gards to worthy Mr. Thurland ; let me heare of him and 
his good lady, and how his son does. God blesse you and 
yours, him and his. I am, 

"Deare Sir, 

Your most affectionate friend, 

» JEREM. DUNENSIS » 



126 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 



This is the last letter which has been yet discovered 
between the two friends. I am loath to think that their 
correspondence terminated here, though it appears proba- 
ble from some expressions of Taylor's that it had already 
begun to slacken, and that this languor had first commen- 
ced on the part of Evelyn. The latter, however, as ap- 
pears from his diary, continued to regard Taylor with un- 
mingled feelings of respect and esteem, and, when speak- 
ing many years after, of Mary Marsh, he calls her " the 
daughter of his worthy and pious friend, the late bishop of 
Down and Connor." That friend however was then no 
more ; and if we are really to account for the apparent 
cessation of correspondence by the supposition that an af- 
fection founded on similarity of sentiment, and cemented 
by benefits and prayers though it had withstood the se- 
verest blasts of adversity, had gradually faded under the 
influence of long continued absence and change of cir- 
cumstances and occupation ; it will be only another proof 
how vain is that life where even our best and noblest ties 
are subject to dissolution and decay, and how valuable 
is that hope which teaches us that the love which is found 
ed in virtue and piety shall revive again and continue to 
form in part the happiness of an existence where neither 
absence nor change is to be feared ! 

During this year, Taylor had again experienced the 
hand of Providence weighing heavily on his domestic 
comforts. On the 10th of March his son Edward was 
buried at Lisburn, — the only surviving son as I apprehend 
of his second marriage. He had found also an occasion 
for his pious munificence in the ruined state of his cathe- 
dral at Dromore of which he rebuilt the choirs at his own 
expense : his wife (not his daughter as had been general- 
ly supposed,) contributing the communion plate*. 

During this year too, he invited over George Rust, a 
Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, with a promise of 
conferring on him the deanery of Connor, w T hich was ex- 
pected to be shortly vacant. Rust was afterwards Tay- 

* Note 1. 1. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 



127 



lor's successor in the see of Dromore, and preached his 
Funeral Sermon, a work, to which we are (obliged in the 
paucity of other materials, for our knowledge of many lea- 
ding circumstances of his life, his fortunes, and character. 
It is remarkable that the preacher himself, though an em- 
inent person in his day, and though his friend Glanvill has 
extolled him as a profound divine, a powerful orator, and 
an admirable philosopher, is now chiefly, if not altogether, 
recollected through his accidental connexion with thtfmore 
illustrious memory of his predecessor. 

Of Taylor's domestic concerns, at this time little more 
is known than that he continued to occupy his favourite 
retirement of Portmore, where he had a house and farm, 
and lived in intimate friendship with the family of Lord 
Conway. For our knowledge even of these particulars, 
which are, however, confirmed by the fact that his son 
Edward was buried at Lisburn, we are indebted to two 
strange stories in that strange book the "Sadducismus 
Triumphatus," of Glanvill, edited and enlarged by More, 
which, (though its ravenous credulity and ghostly frontis- 
pieces may at present, be thought only proper to alarm a 
nursery,) displays in some of its arguments much of that 
singular Platonic learning by which its author and editor 
were distinguished, and has, undoubtedly, adduced some 
evidences of apparitions which it is easier to ridicule than 
to disprove. 

One of these w r as a spirit, supposed, on Michaelmas- 
day in the year 1662, to appear to one Francis Taverner, 
" a lusty, proper, stout fellow, then servant at large, af- 
terwards porter, to the Lord Chichester, Earl of Done- 
gal," near Drumbridge, in the county of Antrim, and in 
Taylor's diocese of Connor. The object of the ghost's 
return to earth, which he should seem to have effected in 
a respectable grazierly style, on horseback, and in a white 
coat, — was to recover for the orphan boy a lease, of which 
his widow and her second husband had wronged him. 
Taylor, who was then holding his visitation at Dromore, 
appears to have been desired to examine Traverner re- 
specting what he had seen and heard ; and is said by the 
narrator of the story, a certain Mr. Alcock, his secretary, 



128 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

to have been satisfied as to the truth of the narration. On 
a second meeting, however, with Taverner, at Lord Don- 
egal's house, and in company with my " Lady Conway 
and other persons of quality," — he furnished Taverner 
with a string of interrogatories which he was to propose 
to the spirit on its next appearance, which sufficiently 
prove he was little inclined to " take the ghost's word for 
a thousand pounds." 

The attention, however, attracted by Taverner's story, 
was sufficient, the following year, to make one David 
Hunter, the bishop's own neat-herd, commence ghost-seer 
in his turn, and leave his bed every night, for three quar- 
ters of a year, to follow, though sorely against his will, 
the spirit of an old woman through the neighbouring woods, 
till at length, he had the courage to speak to her. Good 
Lady Conway was convinced of his being really under no 
delusion, but it does not appear that Taylor pnid any at- 
tention to his story. The narrative, however, is, on all 
accounts, curious, and not the less so as proving the fact 
of the bishop's residence and farm at Portmore. 

On the questions proposed to Taverner's aerial visitant, 
some bitter criticisms appear in the " Illustrious Provi- 
dences" of Increase Mather, printed at Boston, 168 3-4, 
p. 225. The present generation will pass a milder cen- 
sure on him. What Taylor's sentiments were on the 
general question of departed spirits re-appearing, may be 
learned from the manner in which he treats the apparitions 
alleged by the Romish priests in behalf of the doctrine of 
purgatory, — after instancing some of which in a strain of 
powerful sarcasm, he goes on to say that, 

" Against this way of proceeding we think fit to ad- 
monish the people of our charges, that, besides that the 
Scriptures expressly forbid us to inquire of the dead for 
truth ; the holy doctors of the church, particularly Ter- 
tullian, St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, Isidor, and The- 
ophylact, deny that the souls of the dead ever do appear; 
and bring many reasons to prove that it is unfitting they 
should : saying, if they did, it would be the cause of 
many errors, and the devils, under that pretence, might 
easily abuse the world with notices and revelations of 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 129 

their own ; and because Christ would have us content 
with Moses and the prophets, and especially, to " hear 
that prophet whom the Lord our God hath raised up' 
amongst us, our blessed Jesus, who never taught any such 
doctrine to his church."* 

He had as we have seen complained to Evelyn of the 
interruptions which his present duties offered to his more 
beloved studies ; and in 1662, nothing of his composition 
issued from the press but the " Via Intelligent, " a ser- 
mon preached before the university of Dublin, on the same 
plan (he tells us) and following the same ideas though in 
different words with that which he had preached, but not 
published, the year before at the archiepiscopal visitation. 
Its purport is in a great measure the same which he had 
partly insisted on in his Liberty of prophesying, — that the 
likeliest way to avoid all religious errors, and the only and 
certain way to prevent our errors from being damnable, is 
to apply ourselves to the practice of holiness, piety and 
charity, and to the teaching of that Holy Spirit, whose aid 
in all things is essential to salvation, will never be wanting 
to the sincere, the humble and the pure. There are some 
expressions in this discourse which have been to hastily 
interpreted into an abandonment, or at least a qualification 
of the large notions of religious liberty which in his Oeolo- 
yia exlexTtxj], he had powerfully supported. A compari- 
son of the corresponding passages in each will, however, 
clear him from this imputation, and prove that, in admit- 
ting the legality of any coercion in such matters he only 
means what he had never denied, that if the consequen- 
ces of the opinion are injurious to the peace of society, it 
may, accidentally, become a question of policy, how far 
the publication of the opinion should be allowed. Thus in 
his Liberty of Prophesying he had explicitly admitted,that 
" if. either the teachers of an opinion themselves, or their 
doctrine, do really and without colour or feigned pretext 
disturb the public peace and just interests they are not to 
be suffered." And this is all which he can be fairly said 
to allow in his present sermon, when after saying, what 

♦Note J J. 

12 



130 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

is most true, that the object of toleration is in the first in- 
stance, not truth, but peace he urges, that when "by 
opinions men rifle the affairs of kingdoms, it is also as 
certain, they ought not to be made public and permitted. 
I do not say that such an admission, unless restricted with- 
in narrow bounds, and guarded with greater precision 
than either here or in the Liberty of Prophesying, Tay- 
lor has employed, may not be dangerous to the principals 
which he has elsewhere, with such admirable ability sup- 
ported. A better opportunity will ere long, present itself 
of examining the extent and clearness of his views on this 
most interesting subject. But it is of consequence to his 
moral, no less than his philosophical character, to show 
that his opinions were the same at different periods of his 
life, and under very different circumstances. And it is 
perfectly apparent from the general tenour and tendency 
of the discourse of which I am speaking that he was as 
tolerant as ever of religious differences, simply taken. 
Nor am I acquainted with any composition oi human elo- 
quence which is more deeply imbued with a spirit of prac- 
tical holiness, — which more powerfully attracts the atten- 
tion of men from the subtilties of theology to the duties and 
charities of religion, — or which evinces a more lofty dis- 
dain of those trifling subjects of dispute which, then or 
since have divided the Protestant Churches. 

"The w T ay," he tells us " to judge of religion, is by 
doing of our duty : and theology is rather a divine life than 
a divine knowledge. In heaven, indeed, we must first see 
and then love ; but here on earth we must first love, and 
love will open our eyes as well as our hearts : and we shall 
then see, and perceive, and understand. 

In pursuance of this train of thought, he goes on to 
show how strangely vice and self interest have power to 
clog and hebetate the understanding ; how necessary is the 
aid of God's Spirit to direct the will aright ; and how 
much that spiritual assistance which is really and ordina- 
rily promised in Scripture, differs from the new 7 revelation 
the visions, and ecstacies, which fanatics, both in the Ro- 
man and Protestant churches, have expected or preten- 
ded to. He describes the Holy Ghost as a Spirit who 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 131 

" does not spend his holy influences in disguises and con- 
vulsions of the understanding ;" who " does not destroy 
reason, but heightens it;" who " goes in company with 
his own ordinances, and makes progressions by the meas- 
ures of life ; his infusions are just as our acquisitions, and 
his graces pursue the methods of nature : that which was 
imperfect, he leads on to perfection ; and that which was 
weak, he makes strong : he opens the heart, not to receive 
mummurs, or to attend to secret whispers, but to hear the 
word of God ; and then he opens the heart, and creates a 
new one ; and without this new creation, this new princi- 
ple of life, we may hear the word of God, but we can 
never understand it ; we hear the sound, but we are nev- 
er the better ; unless there be in our hearts a secret con- 
viction by the Spirit of God, the Gospel itself is a dead 
letter, and worketh not in us the light and righteousness 
of God." 

After enlarging, in a strain of exalted eloquence and 
poetry, on the internal privileges of the truly good and 
sanctified by the communion of God's Spirit, he explains 
the knowledge which a holy man possesses of the myste- 
ries of religion, compared with that of a more learned 
but worldly professor of Christianity, as excelling the lat- 
ter in the same way that experience excels theory, and 
practice speculation. " What learning is it ta' discourse 
of the philosophy of the sacrament, if you do not feel 
the virtue of it ? and the man that can with eloquence 
and subtilty discourse of the instrumental efficacy of bap- 
tismal waters, talks ignorantly in respect of him, who 
hath the answer of a good conscience within and is clean- 
sed by the purifications of the Spirit. If the question con- 
cern any thing that can perfect a man and make him hap- 
py, all that is the proper knowledge and notice of the 
good man. How can a wicked man understand the pu- 
rities of the heart ? and how can an evil and unworthy 
communicant tell what it is to have received Christ by 
faith, to dwell with him, to be united to him, to receive 
him in his heart? The good man only understands that: 
the one sees the colour, and the other feels the sub- 
stance ; the one discourses of the sacrament, and the 



132 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

other receives Christ ; the one discourses for or against 
transubstantiation, but the good man feels himself to be 
changed, and so joined to Christ, that he only understands 
the true sense of transubstantiation, while he becomes to 
Christ bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, and of the 
same spirit with his Lord. " The Comforter, which is 
the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, 
he shall teach you all things." Well : there is our teach- 
er told of plainly ; but how shall we obtain this teacher, 
and how shall we be taught ? Christ will pray for us, 
that we may have this spirit. That is well : but shall all 
Christians have the Spirit ! Yes, all that will live like 
Christians: for so said Christ, — ' If ye love me, keep 
my commandments ; and I will pray the Father, and he 
will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with 
you for ever.' Mark these things. The Spirit of God 
is to be our teacher ; he will abide with us for ever to be 
our teacher; he will teach us all things; but how? If 
ye love Christ, if ye keep his commandments, but not 
else : if ye be of the world, that is, of worldly affections, 
ye cannot see him, ye cannot know him." 

After applying the test of conformity to God's com- 
mandments to the spirit in which the religious disputes of 
his time had chiefly been carried on, and the doctrines 
which had been insisted on ; — after observing, that " he 
that shall maintain it to be lawful to make a war for the 
defence of his opinion, be it what it will, his doctrine is 
against godliness ;" that he who, " for the garments and 
outsides of religion," neglects the duty of obedience to 
his superiors, " is a man of fancy and of the world," 
rather than of God and the Spirit ; and that " that is no 
good religion that disturbs governments, or shakes the 
foundation of public peace ;" — he closes his discourse 
with an exhortation to those who were his immediate au- 
ditors, which they can hardly have heard without their 
hearts burning within them. 

" To you, fathers and brethren, — you, who are, or in- 
tend to be, of the clergy ; you see here the best com- 
pendium of your studies, the best appreviature of you 
labours, the truest method of wisdom, and the infallible, 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 133 

the only way of judging concerning the disputes and 
questions in Christendom. It is not by reading multitudes 
of books, but by studying the truth of God ; it is not by 
laborious commentaries of the doctors that you can finish 
your work, but by the expositions of the Spirit of God : 
it is not by the rules of metaphysics, but by the propor- 
tions of holiness : and, when all books are read, and all 
arguments examined, and all authorities alleged, nothing 
can be found to be true that is unholy. ' Give your- 
selves to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine,' saith 
St. Paul. Read all good books you can ; but exhorta- 
tion unto good life is the best instrument, and the best 
teacher of true doctrine, of that which is according to 
godliness. 

" And let me tell you this : the great learning of the 
fathers was more owing to their piety than to their skill ; 
more to God than to themselves ; and to this purpose is 
that excellent ejaculation of St. Chrysostom, with which 
I will conclude : i O blessed and happy men, whose 
names are in the book of life, from whom the devils fled, 
and heretics did fear them, who (by holiness) have stop- 
ped the mouths of them that spake perverse things ! But 
I, like David, will cry out, Where are thy loving-kind- 
nesses which have been even of old ? Where is the 
blessed quire of bishops and doctors, who shined like 
lights in the world, and contained the word of life? 
1 Dulce est meminisse ;' their very memory is pleasant. 
Where is that Evodias, the sweet savour of the church, 
the successor and imitator of the holy apostles ? Where 
is Ignatius, in whom God dwelt ? Where is St. Diony- 
sius, the Areopagite, that bird of Paradise, that celestial 
eagle ? Where is Hippolytus, that good man,a^£ xqtju- 
tds, that gentle sweet person ? Where is great St. Basil, 
a man almost equal to the apostles ? Where is Athana- 
sius, rich in virtue ? Where is Gregory Nyssen, that 
great divine ? And Ephrem, the great Syrian that stir- 
red up the sluggish, and awakened the sleepers, and com- 
forted the afflicted, and brought the young men to disci- 
pline ; the looking-glass of the religious, the captain of 
the penitents, the destruction of heresies, the receptacle 
12* 



134 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

of graces, the habitation of the Holy Ghost ?' — These 
were the men that prevailed against error, because they 
lived according to truth ; and whoever shall oppose you, 
and the truth you walk by, may better be confuted by 
your lives than by your disputations. Let your adversa- 
ries have no evil thing to say of you, and then you will 
best silence them : for all heresies and false doctrines are 
but like Myron's counterfeit cow, it deceived none but 
beasts ; and these can cozen none but the wicked and 
the negligent, them that love a lie, and live according to 
it. But, if ye become burning and shining lights ; if ye 
do not detain the truth in unrighteousness; if ye walk 
in light and live in the Spirit : your doctrines will be 
true, and that truth will prevail. But if ye live wick- 
edly and scandalously, every little schismatic shall put 
you to shame, and draw disciples after him, and abuse 
your flocks, and feed them with colocynths and hemlock, 
and place heresy in the chairs appointed for your reli- 
gion. 

"I pray God give you all grace to follow this wisdom, 
to study this learning, to labour for the understanding of 
godliness ; so your time and your studies, your persons 
and your labours, will be holy and useful, sanctified and 
blessed, beneficial to men, and pleasing to God, through 
him who is the wisdom of the Father, who is made to all 
them that love him wisdom, and righteousness, and sane- 
tification, and redemption." 

In 1663, Taylor published his Xqiaig Teleiwrixri, "a 
Defence and Introduction to the Rite of Confirmation, " 
dedicated to the duke of Ormond ; — three Sermons, 
preached at Christ Church, Dublin; — and a Funeral 
Sermon on the Primate Bramhall, full of curious infor- 
mation concerning the secret history of the times, and 
the pains which had been taken, with more success than 
was then generally known or apprehended, to pervert 
the exiled king from the faith of his countrymen. He 
was now also busied on the last considerable work which 
he lived to publish, — his " Dissuasive from Popery," — - 
which appeared in 1664. , 

This task he had undertaken by desire of the collec* 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 135 

tive body of Irish bishops ; and their injunctions, and the 
obvious necessity of the measure, he represents as his 
only motives for again embarking in so troublous a sea, 
notwithstanding his great and increasing aversion to that 
and every other controversy. It was difficult, however, 
for any good man to survey the follies and idolatries of 
popery, as they subsisted around him in their most re- 
volting forms, without being anxious, by every means 
in his power, to abate the evil, or prevent its farther dif- 
fusion. 

No part, indeed, of the administration of Ireland by 
the English crown, has been more extraordinary and more 
unfortunate, than the system pursued for the introduction 
of the reformed religion. Instead of sending, in the first 
instance, missionaries well skilled in their native tongue 
to convince the inhabitants of the errors of their ancient 
faith, and conciliate them to a reception of the new, the 
churches were filled with English preachers ; whose nation 
made them unpopular, and whose ignorance of the lan- 
guage, which only their parishioners could speak or under- 
stand with readiness, prevented all extensive benefit from 
their zeal, how 7 ever warm, and their abilities, however 
considerable. It was not even thought necessary to fur- 
nish them with a translation either of the liturgy or the 
Scriptures : though, by a refinement in absurdity, they 
were to be compelled by a fine(which,indeed,was rarely en- 
forced,) to attendance on a church service, which was still 
more unintelligible to them than their ancient mass book, 
without having the same early associations to recommend 
it to them. Accordingly, while Wales, from an opposite 
line of treatment, received the doctrines of the Refor- 
mation with avidity, and, at an early period, was become 
almost exclusively Protestant ; — while the Norman Isles 
have ever since been amongst the most faithful adher- 
ents of the episcopal church, from the advantage of 
French preachers and a French service book, — Ireland, 
with a people above most other*; docile and susceptible 
of new impressions, has remained, through a great ma- 
jority of her population, in the profession of a creed dis- 
countenanced by the state, and under the dominion of 



136 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

prejudices which, even to the present moment, no effect- 
ual measures have been taken to remove. A few uncon- 
nected, though zealous, and, so far as they went, success- 
ful efforts to remove this ignorance, were made by such 
men as Usher and the excellent bishop Bedell, and after- 
wards by Mr. Boyle. But government, which ought to 
have given the first impulse, was bent on a narrow and 
illiberal policy of supplanting the Irish by the English 
language, to which the present moral and religious in- 
struction of millions was to give way, and which, though 
it has in part succeeded, (through circumstances of which 
the march was altogether independant of the measures 
taken to forward it,) has left a division of the national 
heart, far worse than that of the tongue, and perpetuated 
prejudices which might at first have been easily removed 
or softened. Even now, though the liturgy has been 
translated, and though there are many parishes where 
English is almost unknown, — throughout Ireland, if I am 
rightly informed, no public prayers are offered up in the 
ancient language ; and though a version of the Scriptures 
has long existed, it is only within the few last years, that 
any attempts have been made to circulate them among 
the poor. 

It was, indeed, the misfortune of Ireland, and one 
which materially prevented the application of any active 
means for the conversion of her natives to a pure mode 
of faith and worship, that among the English clergy, who 
were the first heralds of Protestantism to her shores a 
large proportion were favourers of the peculiar system of 
Calvin ; — a system, of all others, the least attractive to 
the feelings of a Roman Catholic ; and the professors of 
which, as they looked on their brethren of the church of 
England as themselves little better than idolaters, have 
generally been more inclined to spend their zeal in a 
disturbance of the internal peace of their own commun- 
ion, than in an energetic extension of the general princi- 
ples of Protestantism among those who are without its 
pale. In England, during the reign of king Edward, 
when the great impression was, in fact, given to the pub- 
lic mind in favour of the monarch's creed, the points of 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 137 

difference which afterwards arose among its supporters 
were happily unknown, or wisely suppressed ; and the 
transition in the external forms of worship was so small, 
and the changes which struck the common people most 
were all so obviously for the better, that even the minis- 
ters of the old religion had no good plea for withdrawing 
themselves from the church, and the body kept its an- 
cient shape and substance, though its deformities were 
removed, and new blood infused throughout the system. 
To the Irish, Protestantism presented itself as a system 
on which its own members were not agreed ; and of Prot- 
estants, that party which for a time gained the victory 
was precisely that one whose rites and doctrines were 
most at variance with all to which the Irish had been 
accustomed, and whose professors regarded the Irish Ro- 
man Catholic with most contempt and abhorrence. The 
unhappy rebellion of More and O'Nial, in 1641, loaded 
as the memory of its instigators must ever remain with 
the stain of folly, blood-guiltiness, and cruelty, was ac- 
celerated, no doubt, if not occasioned, by the oppression 
of Sir William Parsons, and the other heads of the pu- 
ritan faction : by a dread of those severities, the not in- 
flicting of which on the Baptists, the Calvinists, both in 
Ireland and England, made a leading charge against their 
sovereign, and by the interruption, through the influence 
of the same rising party, of the wise and benevolent, 
though vigorous policy, introduced in Ireland under the 
Stuart dynasty. 

On the consequences of that rebellion, — consequences 
even at the present day most deeply and injuriously felt 
by the church of Ireland and her national prosperity, — 
this is not the place to enlarge. It is only necessary to 
observe, that during Taylor's life, and at the time of which 
I am speaking, they existed in all their greatest and most 
recent deformity ; and that, more particularly, the main- 
tenance of the ancient religion was, with the original Irish, 
a bond of union and mutual support, — a guarantee to 
their political existence, — a title to their alienated posess- 
ions, — and a pledge of their future vengeance on those by 
whom they had been despoiled. And while the more 



138 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

educated classes of society had these cogent reasons for 
listening with reluctance to any thing which might be 
urged against the faith of their ancestors, the understand- 
ings and consciences of the illiterate peasantry were in the 
keeping of those who had still stronger motives of preju- 
dice and interest to retain them in the old superstition. 
" The Roman religion," as Taylor himself observes, "is 
here amongst us a faction, and a state party, and design 
to recover their old laws and barbarous manner of living, 
— a device to enable them to dwell alone, and to be c pop- 
ulus unius labii,' a people of one language and unmingled 
with others. And if this be religion, it is such an one as 
ought to be reproved by all the severities of reason and 
religion, lest the people perish, and their souls be cheap- 
ly given away to them that make merchandise of souls, 
who were the purchase and price of Christ's blood ! " 

Such obstacles as these a learned treatise on the errors 
of popery was not very likely to batter down, and the 
author himself appears to have been extremely far from 
participating an immediate or extensive success of his 
labours. "Having given," are his words, "this sad ac- 
count, why it was necessary that my lords the bishops 
should take care to do what they have done in this affair, 
and why I did consent to be engaged in this controversy, 
otherwise than I love to be ; and since it is not a love of 
trouble and contention, but charity to the souls of the 
poor deluded Irish ; there is nothing remaining, but that 
we humbly desire of God to accept and to bless this well- 
meant labour of love ; and that by some admirable ways of 
his providence, he will be pleased to convey to them the 
notices of their danger and their sin, and to deobstruct 
the passages of necessary truth to them ; for we know 
the arts of their guides, and that it will be very hard that 
the notice of these things shall ever be suffered to arrive 
to the common people, but that which hinders will hin- 
der, until it be taken away : however, we believe and 
hope in God for remedy." 

The remedy may at first sight, appear to have been 
more in the power of Taylor and his brethren than they 
were themselves, perhaps, aware of. If the Roman 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 139 

Catholics, as he had previously complained in this same 
preface, were so studiously kept back by their spiritual 
guides from acquiring a knowledge of English, it was 
surely a very obvious measure for the preachers of the 
true faith to inform themselves in the ancient Irish. It 
was a course which Bedell had already tried with suc- 
cess, to introduce, as far as possible, the Scriptures and 
the liturgy in that language into the churches ; and to 
promote to the care of parishes in preference to all oth- 
ers, such ministers as were able to cope with the friars 
on their own ground, and enable the peasants to hear 
the Gospel, every man in his own tongue w T herein he was 
born. 

Had such a system even then been adopted, it is im- 
possible to suppose that much good might not have been 
effected ; and this very discourse of Taylor's, though too 
long and too learned to penetrate among the mountains 
and into the cottages ; yet, as furnishing the agents in 
the work of conversion with arguments adapted alike to 
the ignorant and the learned ; with zeal increased in pro- 
portion to their own knowledge of the importance of the 
truths which they conveyed ; and with that celestial ar- 
moury of spiritual weapons which his admirable knowl- 
edge of Scripture has supplied, — might have itself been 
a source of light to thousands ; a means, in God's hand, 
of drying up the waters of bitterness, and removing the 
greatest obstacle which has existed to the peace and pros- 
perity of the empire. 

What peculiar hinderanccs they were to which he al- 
ludes, (and it is but reasonable as well a charitable to be- 
lieve that some such intervened to prevent the adoption 
of a plan so apparently obvious,) whether they were con- 
fined to Taylor's own diocese, or arose from the general 
state of the country and the neglect or impolicy of its gov- 
ernment, it is now by no means easy to determine. The 
restoration of the Protestant episcopal church seems to 
have been a juncture peculiarly favourable for such exer- 
tions as I have mentioned ; and it is difficult to suppose 
that forms so like their own, and doctrines so conformable 
to reason, would have produced a less effect on the minds 



140 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

of the Irish, than has since been done by the preaching of 
the wildest and most ignorant sectaries. 

But, for the neglect or the oversight, if such existed, it 
was not Taylor who was chiefly answerable. He wasone 
of many, and in rank not among the most eminent; and 
he was already sinking under the burden, not of years, but 
of a constitution broken with study and adversity,* and 
which was still more effectually crushed by severe domes- 
tic affliction. 

Of the second marriage, as we have already seen, one 
son only, Edward, had escaped the small-pox, and him 
he had buried at Lisbum. Of his two first, according to 
lady Wray, two sons survived. The eldest of these, 
whom she calls " her uncle Edward," though, as I con- 
ceive, mistakenly, was a captain of horse in the king's 
service, and fell in a duel with a brother officer of the 
name of Vane, w T ho also died of his w T ounds. The second, 
Charles, was intended for the church, and remained, till 
of standing for his degree of Master of Arts, at Trinity 
College, Dublin. His views of life, however, and, as it 
should seem, his conduct, did not correspond with his fa- 
ther's hopes and example : and he became the favourite 
companion, and at length the secretary of Villiers, duke 
of Buckingham. He died of a decline, at the house of 
his patron at Baynard's castle, and was buried in .St. Mar- 
garet's church, Westminster, August 2, 1667. f The 
bishop himself, who had, as may be well believed, and as 
his grand-daughter assures us, nearly sunk under the loss 
of his eldest son, audits unfortunate circumstances, can 
hardly have heard of 'this second blow before his own re- 
lease. He was attacked by a fever, on the 3d of August 
in the same year, at Lisburn, where he appears, during 
the latter part of his life, to have often occasionally resid- 
ed ; and died, after a ten days' sickness, in the fifty-fifth 
year of his age, and the seventh of his episcopacy. 

His remains w r ere removed to Dromore, to the church 
of which place he had been a liberal benefactor. Dr. 
Rust, his friend, and his successor in that see, preached a 

♦NoteKK. tNoteLL. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 141 

funeral sermon, which, in itself, is no bad copy of Tay- 
lor's peculiar style of eloquence, and is well calculated to 
show the veneration in which he was held, the sweetness 
of his temper, and the variety of his accomplishments. 
No monument, however, was erected to his memory, and 
about a century afterwards, his bones, and those of his 
friend Rust, were disturbed from their vault to make room 
for the coffin of another bishop. The late venerable bish- 
op Percy had them carefully collected and replaced. 
That their repose was ever violated, or that they were 
suffered to lie neglected so long, is not to be recorded 
without indignation. 

At the time of his death he had already sent to the 
press the " Second Part" of his " Dissuasive from Pope- 
ry," being, in a great measure, an answer to" Sure Foot- 
ing in Christianity," a work by John Serjeant, a Romish 
priest, who, in one of his appendices, had attacked some 
of Taylor's former positions. He had also written a 
"Disccurse on Christian Consolation," which was pub- 
lished in 1671, and was followed, in 1684, by "Contem- 
plations en the State of Man," a work which is marked as 
his on unquestionable authority, though it has the appear- 
ance of an unfinished production, and is by no means 
equal to the general style of his compositions. 

His widow survived him many years, but the place and 
time of her death is unknown. He left three daughters, of 
w T hom the eldest Phoebe died unmarried. The second, 
Mary, was the w 7 ifeof Docior Francis Marsh, successively 
dean of Connor and Armagh, bishop of Limerick and Kil- 
more, and archbishop of Dublin; whose descendants, of the 
same name are numerous and wealthy. She is mentioned 
by Evelyn, who once met her, with her husband, at a 
meeting of the Royal Society, as a woman of abilities and 
attainments above the usual standard. The third, Joan- 
na*, w T as married to Edward Harrison, of Maralave, es- 
quire, member during many successive parliaments for the 
borough of Lisburn, whose daughter already mentioned, 
married Sir Cecil Wray, and from whom was lineally de- 

•Note MM. 

13 



142 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

scended William Todd Jones, of Homra, esquire, to whose 
MS. remains the present work is so materially indebted. 
A further account of these different branches will be found 
in the Notes*. 

The comliness of Taylor's person has been often noticed 
and he himself appears to have been not insensible of it. 
Few authors have so frequently introduced their own por- 
traits, in different characters and attitudes, as ornaments, 
to their printed works. So far as we may judge from 
these, he appears to have been above the middle size, 
strongly and handsomely proportioned, with his hair long 
and gracefully curling on his cheeks, large dark eyes, 
full of sweetness, an aquiline nose and an open and intelli- 
gent countenance. He was thus represented in an original 
picture, once in the possession of the Marsh family, but 
unfortunately lost by his great-grandson, Jeremy Marsh, 
together with other property, in a dangerous ford which 
it was necessary to pass in removing to a fresh place of 
residence. It is from a copy of this painting, still in the 
possession of Mrs. Digby, that the engraving is taken 
which is prefixed to Mr. Bonney 's volume. I suspect how- 
ever, that, in this copy a liberty has been taken in altering 
the dress of the original ; inasmuch as the face is younger 
than is consistent with the age at which he became qual- 
ified to wear the episcopal robes. And it is remarkable 
that in no instance do any of the engravings made during 
his life-time represent him in the chimara and rochet. 
Another portrait, whose claims to originality are, I believe 
undoubted, was presented by Mrs. Wray, of Anne's Vale 
near Rosstrevor, to All Souls' College, displaying the 
same features and style of countenance, but at a more ad- 
vanced period of life, and marked with a cast of melan- 
choly which it is not difficult to account for from the do- 
mestic afflictions of his latter years. This is the likeness 
which is given with the present work, and I gladly take this 
opportunity of acknowledgeing my obligations to the ad- 
mirable pencil of my friend, the Honourable Heneage 
Legge, who made a drawing of it for the use of the engra- 

♦Note NN. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 143 

ver. Of Joanna Taylor also there is a portrait in the pos- 
session of Mrs. Wray, representing a fine woman with a 
pleasing oval countenance, and naked hands and arms of 
much beauty, — standing in an arbour, and suspending a 
branch of laurel over a bust of Charles the First, w T hich 
is placed beside her. These with the watch which Tay- 
lor received from his unfortunate sovereign, and which 
is still preserved by the Marsh family, are so far as I have 
discovered, the only relics remaining of this great and 
good man, and the person most closely united to him by 
alliance and affection*. 

Of Taylor's domestic habits and private character much 
is not known, but all which is known is amiable. " Love," 
as well as " admiration/' is said to have " waited on him" 
in Oxford. In Wales, and amid the mutual irritation and 
violence of civil and religious hostility, we find him con- 
ciliating, when a prisoner, the favour of his keepers, at 
the same time that he preserved undiminished, the confi- 
dence and esteem of his own party. Laud in the height 
of his power and full-blown dignity ; Charles in his deep- 
est reverses ; Hatton, Vaughan, and Conway, amid the 
tumults of civil war ; and Evelyn, in the tranquillity of his 
elegant retirement ; seem alike to have cherished his 
friendship, and coveted his society. The same genius 
which extorted the commendation of Jeanes, for the vari- 
ety of its research and vigour of its argument, was also 
an object of interest and affection with the young, and 
rich, and beautiful Katherine Phillips ; and few writers, 
who have expressed their opinions so strongly, and some- 
times, so unguardedly as he has done, have lived and died 
with so much praise and so little censure. Much of this 
felicity may be probably referred to an engaging appear- 
ance and a pleasing manner ; but its cause must be sought 
in a still greater degree in the evident kindliness of heart, 
which if the uniform tenour of a man's writings is any 
index to his character, must have distinguished him from 
most men living : in a temper, to all appearance warm 
but easily conciliated ; and in that which, as it is one of 

♦Note 00. 



144 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

the least common, is of all dispositions the most attractive, 
not merely a neglect, but a total forgetfulness of all sel- 
fish feeling. It is this indeed which seems to have con- 
stituted the most striking feature of his character. Other 
men have been to judge from their writings and their lives 
to all appearance as religious, as regular in their devotions, 
as diligent in the performance of all which the laws of 
God or man require from us ; but with Taylor, his duty 
seems to have been a delight, his piety a passion. His 
faith was the more vivid in proportion as his fancy was 
more intensely vigorous ; with him the objects of his hope 
and reverence were scarcely unseen or future; his imagi- 
nation daily conducted him to u diet with gods," and ele- 
vated him to the same height above the world, and the 
same nearness to ineffable things, which Milton ascribes to 
his allegorical " cherub Contemplation." 

With a mind less accurately disciplined in the tram- 
mels and harness of the schools — less deeply imbued 
with ancient learning — less uniformly accustomed to com- 
pare his notions with the dictates of elder saints and 
sages, and submit his novelties to the authority and cen- 
sure of his superiors — such ardour of fancy might have 
led him into dangerous error ; or have estranged him too 
far from the active duties, the practical wisdom of life, 
and its dull and painful realities: and, on the other hand, 
his logic and learning — his veneration for antiquity and 
precedent — and his monastic notions of obedience in 
matters of faith as well as doctrine — might have fettered 
the energies of a less ardent mind, and weighed him 
down into an intolerant opposer of all unaccustomed 
truths, and, in his own practice, a superstitious formalist. 
Happily, however, for himself and the world, Taylor was 
neither an enthusiast nor a bigot : and, if there are some 
few of his doctrines from which our assent is withheld by 
the decisions of the church and the language of Scrip- 
ture, — even these (while in themselves they are almost 
altogether speculative, and such as could exercise no in- 
jurious influence on the essentials of faith or the obliga- 
tions to holiness,) may be said to have a leaning to the 
side of piety, and to have their foundation in a love for 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 



145 



the Deity, and a desire to vindicate his goodness, no less 
than excite mankind to aspire after greater degrees of 
perfection. 

His munificent charity was in part shown by his under- 
taking, at his own expense, the rebuilding of his cathe- 
dral. It is also warmly praised by Rust, who tells us 
that, when the great preferments which he enjoyed were 
compared with the small portions which he left to his 
daughters, charity would be proved to have been the prin- 
cipal steward of his revenues. Yet, his daughters mar- 
ried wealthy husbands, and his widow seems to have 
been well provided for. During the latter part of his 
life he was engaged in a law- suit, together with his friend 
lord Conway, against colonel Moses Hill, one of Crom- 
well's officers, which might have eventually greatly less- 
ened his means ; but it seems, from the journals of the 
Irish House of Lords, to have been abandoned by his 
opponent. His ecclesiastical revenues, therefore, were 
certainly great ; and the estate of Mandinam, which his 
wife retained for her life, was, of itself, sufficient to keep 
her above poverty.* 

In conformity with the same simple and disinterested 
character which I have ascribed to him, we find him at 
one time contributing his endeavours to frame a grammar 
for children, at another composing prayers and hymns for 
the young and uninstructed. " If," were his words on 
one occasion, "you do not choose to fill your boy's head 
with something, believe me the devil will!" The same 
temper seems to have made him affable and facetious 
with his inferiors in rank and knowledge. " It was pleas- 
ant," says his secretary Alcock, " to hear my lord talk 
with these poor people, the friends of Haddock, on the 
subject of their relation's spectre." On the whole, we 
have abundant reason for regret, that so little can now be 
recovered of the private life and daily conversation of one 
who was so accomplished and so much beloved, that we 
cannot believe him to have been otherwise than most 
amiable. The " family book," and the papers and let- 

•Note PP. 

13* 



146 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.I). 

ters preserved by his descendants, might have told us, 
much. But these have, to all appearances, perished ; 
and the admirers of Jeremy Taylor must be content to 
form their opinion of him almost exclusively from a 
knowledge of his writings. 

Of those writings some further account is yet to be 
given ; in which it may be convenient to consider them 
in the same order which has been adopted in the present 
edition, and as arranging themselves naturally, according 
to the subjects on which they treat, into the different 
descriptions of Practical, Theological, Casuistic, and De- 
votional. To the first of these classes may be referred, 
" The Life of Christ ;" the " Contemplations on the 
State of Man;" the " Holy Living and Holy Dying; 5 ' 
the " Sermons," and the posthumous w T ork on " Chris- 
tian Consolation," which will be found in this volume. 
The second will comprise the series beginning with his 
" Episcopacy Asserted," and ending with his " Dissua- 
sive from Popery." Under the third head may be class- 
ed the " Discourse on Friendship," and " Ductor Dubi- 
tantium ;" while the last contains all which instrumen- 
tally or directly refer to devotional exercises ; his " Di- 
vine Institution of the Office Ministerial ;" his " Rules 
and Advices for the Clergy ;" his " Golden Grove," and 
the other tracts which will be found in the last volume. 
It is true that, in the best and highest sense of the term 
all Taylor's works are theological ; most of them are dis- 
tinguished by an acute and discriminating application of 
general principles to particular cases and persons ; and 
there is none where he does not occasionally escape from 
the thorns and thistles of controversial questions, to those 
practical lessons of holiness, and those aspirations of heav- 
en-directed feeling, which are the pervading and peculiar 
characteristics of his genius. Still however, there are 
some of his works less practical and less devotional 
than others ; and of those which professedly belong to 
these classes, there are some where the attention is chief- 
ly drawn to the duties of the closet, or the temple, and 
others where he expatiates through a wider range of ho- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 147 

liness, and discusses with the same fervour, but with more 
diffuseness, the obligations, the duties, the charities, and 
the faith of Christians. 

Such is the Life of Christ, or "the Great Exemplar," 
a work undertaken, as he himself tells us in his Dedica- 
tion to lord Hatton, with an intention of withdrawing the 
thoughts of men from controverted and less important 
doctrines, to the great and necessary rallying points of 
Christianity, and those duties and charities on which all 
men are agreed, but which all men forget so easily. 

11 In pursuance," he says, u of this consideration, I have 
chosen to serve the purposes of religion, by doing assis- 
tance to that part of theology which is wholly practical, 
that which makes us wiser, therefore, because it makes 
us better. And truly my lord, it is enough to weary the 
spirit of a disputer, that he shall argue till he hath lost his 
voice, and his time, and sometimes the question too : and 
yet no man shall be of his mind more than was before. 
How few turn Lutherans, or Calvinists, or Roman Cath- 
olics, from the religion either of their country or interest. 
Possibly two or three weak or interested, fantastic and 
easy, prejudicate and effeminate understandings, pass from 
church to church, upon grounds as weak as those from 
which formerly they did dissent; and the same arguments 
are good or bad, as exterior accidents or interior appetites 
shall determine. I deny not but for great causes some 
opinions are to be quitted : but when I consider how few 
do forsake any, and, when any do, oftentimes they choose 
the wrong side, and they that take the righter do it so by 
contingency, and the advantage also is so little, I believe 
that the triumphant persons have but small reason to 
please themselves in gaining proselytes, since their pur- 
chase is so small, and as inconsiderable to their triumph 
as it is unprofitable to them, who change for the worse or 
the better upon unworthy motives. In all this there is 
nothing certain nothing noble. But he that follows the 
work of God, that is, labours to gain souls, not to a sect 
and a subdivision but to the Christian religion, that is to 
the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus, hath a prom- 
ise to be assisted and rewarded, — and all those that go to 



148 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

heaven are the purchase of such undertakings, the fruit 
of such culture and labours ; for it is only a holy life that 
lands us there. 

" And now, my lord, I have told you my reasons, I 
shall not be ashamed to say, that I am weary and toiled 
with rovving up and down in the seas of questions, which 
the interests of Christendom have commenced, and in 
many propositions of which lam heartily persuaded, I am 
not certain that I am not deceived : and I find that men 
are most confident of those articles which they can so lit- 
tle prove that they never made questions of them. But 
I am most certain that, by living in the religion and fear 
of God, in obedience to the king, in the charities and du- 
ties of communion with my spiritual guides, in justice and 
love with all the world in their several proportions, I shall 
not fail of that end which is perfection of human nature, 
and which will never be obtained by disputing." 

The work thus introduced and inscribed, is as it pro- 
fesses to be of a nature entirely practical. It discusses 
no doctrines but those on which almost all Christians are 
agreed and which necessarily are suggested by the princi- 
pal events of our Saviour's history. It enters into no 
critical examination of facts or dates, of evidences or va- 
rious readings. The author does not exercise his learn- 
ing and discrimination, in explaining those peculiarities of 
ancient or local history and manners which, as they are 
little less than absolutely necessary to a competent under- 
standing of writers like those of the New-Testament, so 
no author of the present day would omit them in a history 
of our Saviour. He does not even distinguish between 
those facts which are recorded by the inspired historians 
themselves, and those which repose on uncertain tradition 
or on the mere presumptions of the ancient fathers ; but 
relates with almost the same apparent faith, the salutation 
of the angel to the Virgin Mary : the Syriac prayer at- 
tributed to Christ at his baptism by St. Philoxenes ; and 
the prostration of the Egyptian idols, when the infant Je- 
sus came into their country. 

Nor does he attempt in any instance to reconcile the 
different narrations of the evangelists with each other, or 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 149 

to produce a regular and chronological harmony of the 
Gospel. His work is nothing else than a series of devout 
meditations on the different events recorded in the New 
Testament, as well as on the more remarkable traditions 
which have been usually circulated respecting the Divine 
Author of our religion, his earthly parent, and his follow- 
ers. This is a plan far less extensive, less curious, and 
perhaps less rational, than would now be contemplated by 
an eminent divine who should purpose to write a Life of 
Christ. But even a defective plan in the hands of a 
mighty genius, maybe clothed with beauties which mere 
learning and critical acumen could never bestow and is 
susceptible of ornaments more rich and various than a 
more regular structure could receive with propriety. It 
is even probable that, as a book of devotional instruction 
for every class and age, the Great Exemplar may have 
gained an impressive and edifying interest, by the exclu- 
sion of every thing critical or antiquarian and by the man- 
ner in which it calls our unmingled attention to the narra- 
tive of the Gospel, heightened only by those picturesque 
and poetical accompaniments which like the minute orna- 
ments of ancient cathedral, though separately taken some 
of them might seem out of place yet communicate to the 
general building the effect of beauty the most luxuriant, 
the most impressive, the most solemn and sacred. 

Be this ns it may, it must be confessed that this first 
popular work of Taylor's contains many splendid moral 
and devotional passages ; that the sermons which are in- 
troduced into it (for the disquisitions which occur all an- 
swer to this description, and might be delivered lrom the 
pulpit with so much effect, that it is hard to believe that 
this was not their first destination,) are conceived in the 
same spirit of devout and majestic eloquence which per- 
vades his Eviavxoq ; and that in the few instances where 
controversial discussion was unavoidable, no writer of the 
age has argued with more acuteness, with more extensive 
learning, or so warm and earnest a charity. 

Nor are these the only merits of the work which I am 
discussing. I am acquainted with no work of Taylor's 
(I might say with no work of any author) in which more 



150 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

of practical wisdom may be found, a greater knowledge of 
the human heart, and a more dexterous and touching ap- 
plication, not only of the solemn truths of Christianity, 
but of even the least important circumstances related in 
the life of our Saviour, to the developement of sound 
principles of action, and to the correction and guidance 
of our daily conduct. Thus, in his preface, not only the 
exact conformity of Christianity with right reason and 
natural instinct, — its fitness for the present wants, as well 
as the future prospects of man, — and the manner in 
which it confirms, extends, and illustrates the law of na- 
ture, — are laid down with admirable good sense and 
knowledge of his subject ; but many curious and inter- 
esting principles of metaphysical and political wisdom 
will be found incidentally, and, as if ex abundantly scat- 
tered through it, which show the grasp and vigour of the 
author's mind, and that, though his choice confined him 
to those topics which are the immediate subjects of his 
profession, there were few, indeed, in the treatment of 
which he might not have excelled. At the same time, 
there is none of these incidental topics which is not made 
conducive to the enforcement of practical piety and per- 
sonal holiness. No part of his work can be read with- 
out some fruit of this kind ; but, in the application of 
general principles to particular but important instances of 
thought and action, the " Exhortation to the Imitation of 
the Life of Christ/' — the sermon on the " Duty of Nurs- 
ing Children," — that on " Obedience," — on C{ Mortifica- 
tion," — on " Baptizing Infants," — on " the Religion of 
Holy Places," — on " Scandal," — and on cc the Divine 
Judgments," are perhaps the most remarkable. 

In some instances, but in a very few, he is not to be 
followed without caution. He had already imbibed those 
opinions, the fuller exposition of which afterwards gave 
so much concern to some of the most distinguished mem- 
bers of the English church, on the subjects of origi- 
nal sin, and the consequences of Adam's transgression. 
Something of this sort may be traced in his apparently 
imperfect view of the causes of human corruption, when 
he tells us that " the law of nature, being decreed and 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 151 

made obligatory, was a sufficient instrument of making 
man happy, that is in producing the end of his creation. 
But, as Adam had evil discourses and irregular appetites, 
before he fell, (for they made him fall,) — and as the an- 
gels, who had no original sin, yet they choose evil at the 
first, when it was wholly arbitrary in them to do so or 
otherwise ; so did man. < God made man upright, but 
he sought out many inventions.' c Some men/ he contin- 
ues, < r were ambitious, and, by incompetent means, would 
make their brethren to be their servants ; some were cov- 
etous, and would usurp that which, by an earlier distinc- 
tion, had passed into private posession : and then they 
made new principles, and new discourses, such which 
were reasonable to their private indirect ends, but not to 
the public benefit, and, therefore, would prove unreason- 
able and mischievous to themselves at last." 

That Adam must have had a capability of sinning be- 
fore he actually sinned, is demonstrably, if not evidently 
true : and it must, in the same way, be conceded, — if this 
capability of offending were all which were meant by 
original sin, — that the angels also who sinned, must in the 
degree have had it as well as Adam. But it is neither 
consonant with reason nor with Scripture to assert, that 
all the evil which we find in the world, and in ourselves, 
either was in Adam before the fall, or has been since 
accumulated by the free, though unhappy choice of his 
different descendants, gradually as they may have made 
the world worse, and added the contagion of example 
and precedent to the inherited and universal propensity to 
wickedness. 

The existence of such a propensity in man, and the 
necessity of grace to give us the victory over it, Taylor 
has, in very many passages of his works, and in many of 
this work itself of which we are speaking, acknowledged 
with much clearness and humility. And it is strange that 
he did not perceive, that as Adam, at his creation, was 
certainly in a state of grace, — and as his descendants, at 
their respective births, are, as confessedly, in a state of 
corruption, — some change must have taken place in the 
nature, as well as the situation of mankind ; and that, 



152 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

though neither Adam nor the angels were, in the first in- 
stance, impeccable, it may well be, that, in consequence 
of his fall, we are by nature more inclined to sin than ei- 
ther he or they were. 

The question will be discussed more at length in anoth- 
er place. I will here only observe, that in one who, like 
Taylor, confessed his own corruption, wher.cesoever de- 
rived, and placed his whole hopp of pardon in Christ's 
blood, and of sanctification in Christ's Spirit, the error 
was divested of its malignity so far as it respected himself, 
though an error it certainly was, and, in certain ways of 
applying the principle, a dangerous one. It is curious to 
see how extremes meet. Tavlor seems to have been, in a 
great measure, led into his mistake by a horror of Calvin- 
ism, and an anxiety to avoid ascribing to God the appa- 
rent injustice of cursing all the world for the sins of one 
man. Yet he falls into the highest supralapsarian Calvin- 
ism, by merely throwing a little farther back the origin of 
man's misery, and representing him as coming immediately 
from the hand of his Maker with the same load of invin- 
cible corruption (invincihle, unless by superadded grace,) 
which his descendants, in their present state, carry about 
with them. 

Surely there is little difference whether we say, with the 
ultra Calvinists, that God created man in order that he might 
fall, — or, that he so created him that he could not help 
falling. But, if Adam were framed not only with a ca- 
pacity of sinning, but also of remaining without sin, he 
was then, certainly, in a state which his descendants do 
not experience ; and there is no event in the history of the 
world to which the loss of this state can be assigned, ex- 
cept the fall of Adam and its consequences. 

Nor is the justice of God impunged by the supposition 
that privileges which Adam had abused or neglected 
were not continued to his descendants, or that the race 
of men were, thenceforward, put under a new regimen of 
weakness and of repentance ; — the weakness receiving 
sufficient but inferior spiritual aids, the repentance reward- 
ed with a blessing beyond the utmost which Adam could 
have hoped for. This is the light in whick the question 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 153 

has been viewed by the English church, and this, it might 
be thought, was one which, while it sufficiently estab- 
lishes the dependence of man on his Maker, sufficiently 
vindicates the Creator from being the cause of evil, and 
from desiring that any of his children should perish. 

Another instance in which Taylor has passed from a 
common and dangerous extreme to an opposite equally 
erroneous, is the case of death-bed repentance, which 
here, as in a succeeding work, he clogs with so many 
dangers and limitations as to render it but very little less 
than impossible. It has been, indeed, at all times, a vul- 
gar and perilous self flattery, to apprehend not only that 
repentance would, after a life of sin, be, at any time when 
we willed it, within our power ; but that a few expiring 
lamentations, extorted by the fear of approaching torment, 
were to expiate for many years of obstinate transgression, 
and supply, in the heart of him who is passing to his ac- 
count, that love, that purity and those other Christian 
graces, without which even heaven itself would be a place 
of misery. It is even probable that the author may 
have been disgusted in those days, as he would have been 
in these of almost equal enthusiasm, with the spectacle 
of criminals advancing triumphantly to their scaffold, and 
looking forward to a death, which they had brought on 
themselves by their crimes, with the same exultation as a 
martyr might embrace his stake ; the same expressed and 
boasted assurance of bliss, as if the fiery chariot of the 
prophet were visibly waiting to receive them. Of the 
harm which may be done to the dying by such indiscrim- 
inate comfort — of the harm which the living will, in all 
probability, receive from such exaggerated statements — I 
am fully and mournfully sensible. But to calculate, as 
Taylor does, the time which is required for the acquisi- 
tion of graces, which God may, if he pleases, at once 
communicate ; — to require the expression of outward and 
long continued actions, as in all instances equally neces- 
sary to confirm the inward feeling in his eyes by whom 
that feeling itself may be inspired ; — is to make the nar- 
row gate of salvation narrower than God has made it, and, 
in our anxiety for the holiness of men in health, to seal 
14 



154 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

up in despair the sick soul that might otherwise have burst 
its bondage. There may, it should be recollected, even 
on a death-bed, and in a very short space of time, be the 
opportunity of rendering God acceptable service, and 
bringing forth, though amid darkness and terror, the fruits 
of repentance. We may have time for prayer : we may 
have time for confession ; for forgiveness of our enemies ; 
for patience ; for resignation ; perhaps for restitution. 
We may have time for some of these, for the rest we may 
have a desire; — and for all of these, we know', in one il- 
lustrious instance, the penitent thief 'had not time or op- 
portunity. The danger which there always must be, that 
in sickness we should neither have opportunity nor spiritual 
power to turn to God — the chance that our heads may be 
light, or our hearts hardened, when the day of sorrow 
comes on us — are terrors sufficiently great to lead every 
man who is not insensible of danger, to employ, to the 
best of his power, the day of salvation while it shines : as 
well knowing that, whether others are called effectually 
in the eleventh hour or not, the time at which he is last 
called must be the eleventh hour to him. Still however 
the manner in which Taylor has painted the dangers of a 
sinner's death bed, displays no ordinary pencil, and the 
colours (dismal as they are, and in some instances, over- 
charged,) are marked on the whole, with so much truth, 
that I could w 7 ish some of his frightful legend published 
in a popular form, as an antidote to those edifying deaths 
which are now in almost daily circulation. 

These are the only particulars of importance which oc- 
cur to me in which this great and good man has in the 
work now before us, departed from the usual sense of the 
church and the general analogy of Scripture. There are 
other, but in comparison very trifling points on which he 
has pronounced with too much haste or positiveness. In 
his Discourse on Repentance, he takes it for granted that 
the angels who sinned had never any room for repentance 
that, " their first act of volition was their whole capacity 
of a blissful or miserable eternity : they made their ow T n 
sentence when they made their first election." This he 
had learned from the schoolmen, who apprehending that 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 155 

the production of the angels must have taken place on the 
same day with the creation of the heavenly bodies, were 
perplexed how else to find sufficient time for the apostacy 
of Satan, between the commencement of his being and 
his successful temptation of the woman ; and thought the 
opinion, " probabiliorem et sanctiorern, quod statim post 
primum instans suae creationis, diabolus peccaverit." But 
Taylor has, in this instance expressed himself with more 
positiveness than Aquinas : and we surely know too little 
of the angelic nature and history, to assume any facts 
concerning either, wjjich are not clearly revealed in Scrip- 
ture. That there are angels, and that some of them have 
not kept their first estate, we know, for it has been made 
known to us. But wherein their fault consisted or how 
long they had previously remained in glory and innocency 
as God has not told us, it is useless to guess, and worse 
than useless to ground an argument on our conjectures. 

In another opinion which he elsewhere in different pas- 
sages of his works, repeats he has fallen into the same 
mistake with Warburton. He tells us that Balaam, 
when he prayed to die the death of the righteous, had 
only respect to length of days and tranquility of mind, the 
promise of a life after death being hidden from the age in 
which he lived. Without entering into such a discussion 
it is enough to say, that Michaelis has shown that the 
writings of Moses contain abundant proofs that the immor- 
tality of the soul was familiarly known to his contempo- 
raries. 

There is some grave trifling in vol. ii. p. 72, about the 
letters of Jehovah's name, which he had from the Cab- 
balists. If he designed it as a poetical ornament, it sa- 
vours of the taste of the time ; if as an argument or illus- 
tration it rests on too weak authority to be good for any 
thing. In all his works, he is fond of alluding to histori- 
cal incidents, often with an admirable oratorical effect, 
though the stories alleged may be no more than idle le- 
gends. Here however, he has twice quoted, as from 
Scripture, though without naming the place, a story of 
23,000 Assyrians destroyed in one night, for fornication, 
which I confess, I never met with in Scripture or else- 



156 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

where. But these are trifling blemishes in a work of so 
great length, of so distinguished beauty, usefulness, and 
learning, in which he has nobly fulfilled the purpose ex- 
pressed in his preface, " To advance the necessity, and 
to declare the manner and parts of a good life. I have 
followed (he continues) the design of Scripture and have 
given milk for babes, and for stronger men stronger meat; 
and in all I have despised my own reputation, by so stri- 
ving to make it useful, that I was less careful to make it 
strict in retired senses and embossed with unnecessary 
but graceful ornaments. I pray God this may go forth 
into a blessing to all that shall use it, and reflect blessings 
upon me all the way, that my spark may grow greater 
by kindling my brother's taper, and God may be glorified 
in us bolh. If the reader shall receive no benefit, yet I 
intended him one, and I have laboured in order to it ; 
and I shall receive a great recompense for that intention, 
if he shall please to say this prayer for me, — 'That while 
I have preached to others, I may not become a castaway !' ' 
In the " Literary Life of the Reverend John Serjeant, 
written by himself," inserted in the Roman Catholic Mis- 
cellany, entitled the " Catholicon," vol. iii. the " Great 
Exemplar" is said to be a mere translation of the Life of 
Christ by Ludolphus de Saxonia. The assertion, how- 
ever, is entirely groundless ; so much so, that, except in 
the circumstance that both authors intermix prayers and 
moral reflections with their narrative, it is scarcely possi- 
ble to find two books written on any one subject which 
have so few coincidences of arrangement, sentiment, or ex- 
pression. The merits of the works of Ludolphus, which, 
as a pious, useful, and practical treatise, I am very far 
from undervaluing, are of a nature entirely different from 
those of the Great Exemplar. Ludolphus, (as was ne- 
cessary in an author who wrote for those by whom the 
Scriptures themselves were little known or studied,) gives 
a long and minute detail of almost every word and action 
of our Lord; — appending to each a string of moral and 
religious observations, extracted, chiefly verbatim, from 
the Fathers. Taylor passes rapidly over the greater part 
of this detail ; but expands, from time to time, into long 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 157 

and eloquent discourses on the more remarkable actions 
and doctrines of our Lord, to which his rival offers noth- 
ing correspondent. The style of the one is usually plain 
and simple, though his prayers are many of them, con- 
ceived in a pleasing and fervent strain of piety. That of 
the other luxuriates in a richnesss of imagery and a gran- 
diloquence of expression, which breathe, in every sen- 
tence, the vital and essential spirit of poetry. The read- 
ing of Taylor was so excursive that it is, indeed, most 
probable that he was not unacquainted wkh the work of 
Ludolphus, and it is possible that, from it, the outline and 
first conception of his own book may have been taken. 
But more than this a comparison of the two Lives forbids 
us to allow, and for even this, so far as I am aware, there 
is no internal evidence whatever in the work of Taylor. 

I have already suggested the probability which there is 
>that the extensive popularity of the Great Exemplar pro- 
duced the " Holy Living" and the " Holy Dying/ 5 works 
which were, in like manner, devoted to the promotion of 
practical holiness, and which, w T ith the Exception of some 
sermons, were the next in succession of his published la- 
bours. 

Both are dedicated to the earl of Carbery, the first in 
a splendid description of the miseries of the time, and the 
duty of a good man under those miseries. This dedica- 
tion concludes with five rules for the application of the 
counsels which follow, so simple, so just, and displaying 
so accurate a knowledge of the dispositions and dangers of 
mankind, that they cannot be too firmly imprinted in the 
memory of a Christian. 

" 1. They that will, with proSt, make use of the prop- 
er instruments of virtue, must so live as if they were al- 
ways under the physician's hand. For the counsels of 
religion are not to be applied to the distempers of the 
soul, as men used to take hellebore ; but they must dwell 
together with the spirit of a man, and be twisted about 
his understanding for ever : they must be used like nour- 
ishment, that is, by a daily care and meditation, not like 
a single medicine, and upon the actual pressure of a pres- 
ent necessity. For councils and wise discourses, applied 
14* 



158 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

to an actual distemper, at the best are but like strong 
smells to an epileptic person ; sometimes they may raise 
him up, but they never cure him. The following rules, 
if they be made familiar to our natures, and the thoughts 
of every day, may make virtue and religion become easy 
and habitual ; but, when the temptation is present, and hath 
already seized upon some portion of our consent, we are 
not so apt to be counselled ; and we find no gust or relish 
in the precept ; the lessons are the same, but the instru- 
ment is unstrung or out of tune. 

" 2. In using the instruments of virtue, we must be cu- • 
rious to distinguish instruments from duties, and prudent 
advices from necessary injunctions : and if by any oth^r 
means the duty can be secured, let there be no scruples 
stired concerning any other helps : only, if they can, in 
that case, strengthen and secure the duty or help towards 
perseverance, let them serve in that station in which they^ 
can be placed. For there are some persons, in whom the 
Spirit of God hath breathed so bright a flame of love, that 
they do all their acts of virtue by perfect choice and with- 
out objection ; and their zeal is warmer than that it wiH^ 1 
be allayed by temptation : and to such persons mortifica- 
tion by philosophical instruments, as fasting, sackcloth, 
and other rudenesses to the body, is wholly useless : it is 
always a more uncertain means to acquire any virtue or 
secure any duty; and if love hath filled all the corners of 
our soul, he alone is able to all the work of God. 

"3. Be not nice in stating the obligations of religion; 
but, where the duty is necessary and the means very rea- 
sonable in itself, dispute not too busily whether, in all 
circumstances, it can fit thy particular ; but, ' super totam 
materiam,' upon the whole, make use of it. For it is a 
good sign of a great religion, and no imprudence, when 
we have sufficiently considered the substance of affairs, 
than to be easy, humble, obedient, apt and credulous in r 
the circumstances, which are appointed to us, in particu- 
lar, by our spiritual guides, or, in general, by all wise 
men in cases not unlike. He that gives alms, does best not 
always to consider the minutes and strict measures of his 
ability, but to give freely, incuriously, and abundantly. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 159 

A man must not weigh grains in the accounts of his re- 
pentance ; but for a great sin have a great sorrow and a 
great severity, and in this take the ordinary advices, 
though, it may be a less rigour might not be insufficient. 
AxQi@odiv.aiov, or arithmetical measures, especially of our 
own proportioning, are but arguments of want of love 
and of frowardness in religion : or else are instruments 
of scruple, and then become dangerous. Use the rule 
heartily and enough, and there will be no harm in the 
error, if any should happen. 

"4. If thou intendest heartily to serve God, and avoid 
sin in any one instance, refuse not the hardest and most 
severe advice that is prescribed in order to it, though pos- 
sibly it be a stranger to thee ; for, whatsoever it be, cus- 
tom will make it easy. 

" 5. When many instruments for the obtaining any 
virtue or restraining any vice are propounded, observe 
which of them best fits thy person or the circumstances 
of thy need, and use it rather than the other; that by 
this means thou mayest be engaged to watch, and use 
spiritual arts and observation about thy soul. Concerning 
the manging of which, as the interest is greater, so the ne- 
cessities are more, and the cases more intricate,and the acci- 
dents and dangers greatetfand more importunate, and there 
is greater skill required, than in the securing an estate, or 
restoring health to an infirm body. I wish all men in 
the world did heartily believe so much of this as is true : 
it w T ould very much help to do the work of God." 

Xfjfhe Holy Living is divided into four chapters, in the 
first of which he discusses the instumental means of holi- 
ness, such as — care of our time, purity of intention, and 
a sense of the Divine presence ; and gives rules for pro- 
ducing and preserving all these habits in our 'hearts and 
behaviour, of which those for the improvement of time are 
perhaps the most useful and practical. 

The second chapter treats of Christian sobriety, which 
he divides into the five heads of Temperance, Chastity, 
Humility, Modesty, and Contentment, — and defines in 
general to be " an using severity, denial and frustration of 
our appetite, when it grows unreasonable in any of these 



160 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

instances." He introduces the discussion of these dif- 
ferent topics with some observations on voluptuousness 
according to this general definition, and with rules for 
subduing our natural tendency towards it, which will well 
reward the reader, and which, for the general reader, are 
perhaps better adapted than the remedies which follow 
for specific and grosser vices. In all cases, his rules for 
avoiding sin, when not too scrupulous and ascetic for prac- 
tice, and therefore less likely to do good than if they 
were less efficacious but more attainable means of holi- 
ness, are better than the arguments which he uses against 
each sin in order. But of all his rules, the " Acts and 
Offices of Humility" are, perhaps, the most impressive, 
— the most effectual, — the most sensible and rational, — 
the most applicable to the temptations and necessities of 
every man. 

The third chapter is devoted to the discussion of 
Christian justice, defined as either commutative or distri- 
butive, and divided into the several heads of, 1. " Obe- 
dience," as due from inferiors to superiors ; — 2. " Pro- 
vision," or Protecting Care, from Sovereigns, Judges, 
Parents, Masters, Guardians ; — 3. Negotiations or Con- 
tracts ; — 4. Restitution, which he defines, as " that part 
of justice to which a man is obliged by a precedent con- 
tract or a foregoing fault, by his own act or another man's, 
either wither without his will. His rules in this part of 
bis work are admirable. They are casuistry in its high- 
est and noblest sense, in which nothing is overstrained, 
nothing extenuated, and (so far as general principles and 
the compass of a short chapter can reach) nothing unpro- 
vided for ; inasmuch as, even where neither the obliga- 
tions of default nor contract can extend, he has speci- 
fied the no less strong and yet holier obligation of grati- 
tude, i 

The fourth chapter treats of the Duties of Religion, 
under the heads of its internal and external actions. The 
former are, Faith, Hope, and Love ; to his account of 
w r hich is added an admirable digression on Zeal. 

" The sum is this : that zeal is not a direct duty, no 
where commanded for itself, and is nothing but a forward- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 161 

ness in the circumstances of another duty, and therefore 
is then only acceptable, when it advances the love of 
God and our neighbours. That zeal is only safe, only 
acceptable, which increases charity directly : and because 
love to our neighbour and obedience to God are the two 
great portions of charity, we must never account our zeal 
to be good but as it advances both these, if it be in a 
matter that relates to both, or severally, if it relates sever- 
ally. St. Paul's zeal was expressed in preaching without 
any offerings or stipend, in travelling, in spending and 
being spent for his flock, in suffering, in being willing to 
be accursed, for love of the people of God and his coun- 
trymen. Let our zeal be as great as his was, so it be in 
affections to others, but not at all in angers against them. 
In the first there is no danger, in the second there is no 
safety. In brief, let your zeal, (if it must be expressed 
in anger) be always more severe against yourself than 
your neighbours." 

»The external actions of religion Taylor defines to be y 
" 1. Reading and hearing the word of God ; — 2. Fast- 
ing and corporeal austerities ; — 3. Feasting, or keeping 
days of public joy and thanksgiving." On all these his 
observations are distinguished by sound good sense and 
earnest piety. Even on fasting, — a duty now so much 
neglected, and to disquisitions on which so few will turn 
with any other feeling than curiosity, — the reasonableness 
of his rules will strike many who, from carelessness or 
the habits of the age, are negligent of, or averse to a 
practice sanctioned by the constitution of our nature ; 
the experience of ages : the injuuction of all Christian 
churches ; the example of all the good men of former 
times, of the apostles, and of the son of God. 

He grounds the sanctity of the Lord's day, not on a 
divine commandment, as was the case w 7 ith the Jewish 
sabbath, (for this commandment he conceives to have 
had respect to that day and that nation only,) but on the 
great duty for which the fourth commandment provides, 
of confessing on all occasions God to be the Maker of 
heaven and earth, and on the institution of the apostles 
that the first day in the week should be set apart for do- 



162 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

ing this in solemn assemblies. The same opinion he 
afterwards expressed more at large in his Ductor Dubi- 
tantium. It seems to have been also the opinion of 
Laud, of Luther, of Calvin, of Spencer, and of almost 
all the early fathers, who agree in representing the fourth 
commandment as of temporrary obligation only, and as 
merely applying to Christians in a spiritual sense ; as in- 
culcating a devotion of ourselves to God's service on all 
proper opportunities, and that rest from worldly cares, of 
which, to the Jews, the sabbath was typical. That the 
authoritiy and example of the apostles, the uniform tra- 
dition of the church, the reasonsbleness of the practice 
abstractedly considered, the necessities of men, and the 
precedent of God's corresponding ordinance under the 
old law, are sufficient reasons for keeping the Lord's day 
holy, the great men whom I have cited were far indeed 
from doubting. Whether their view of the subject be 
more correct than that which makes the fourth command- 
ment, in its literal meaning, a part of the moral and uai- 
versal law, this is not the place for examining. They 
who apprehend that the sanctity of Sunday will be en- 
^f -dangered by a contrary opinion, may read what Taylor 
himself says on the subject — " The Jews," he observes, 
^£ " na d a divine commandment for their day, which we have 
^„ riot for ours ; but we have many commandments to do all 
that honour to God which was intended in the fourth 
commandment; and the apostles appointed the first day 
of the week for doing it in solemn assemblies. Upon 
the Lord's day, we must abstain from all servile and labo- 
rious works, except such which are matters of necessity, 
of common life, or of great charity ; for these are per- 
mitted by that authority which hath separated the day 
for holy uses. The sabbath of the Jews, though con- 
sisting principally in rest, and established by God, did 
yield to thee. And, therefore,this is to be enlarged in the 
Gospel,, whose sabbath or rest is but a circumstance, and 
accessary to the principal and spiritual duties. Upon the 
Christian sabbath, necessity is to be served first ; then 
charity ; and then religion, for this is to give place to 
charity in great instances, and the second to the first in 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 163 

all : and in all cases, God is to be worshipped in spirit 
and in truth." 

His observations on prayer, and, incidentally, on vows ; 
those on alms, together with the remedies which he sug- 
gests for the great causes of an unmerciful and unchari- 
table spirit, envy, anger, and covetousness ; his cannons 
of repentance, and his directions for receiving the sacra- 
ment, are all equally devout, eloquent, and sensible. But 
I will not select, where all may be read with advantage, 
and can hardly be read without admiration. To clothe 
virtue in its most picturesque and attractive colouring, to 
enforce with all the terrors of the divine law, its essential 
obligations ; and to distinguish, in almost every instance 
most successfully, between what is prudent and what is 
necessary ; what may fitly be done,and what cannot be safe- 
ly left undone, — this is the triumph of a Christian moralist ; 
and this Jeremy Taylor has, in a great degree, achieved 
in his discourse on Holy Living. 

Each chapter is followed by a series of prayers, adapt- 
ed to those temptations or duties which have been discuss- 
ed in it. Of these prayers, the merit is in a great measure 
proved by their popularity ; a popularity, perhaps, little 
fess than that which our beautiful Liturgy itself has ob- 
tained among Christians. Almost all of them contain 
passages of genuine poetry and eloquence, and all are per- 
vaded by a tenderness and pathos of earnest piety which 
must have proceeded from the feeling which they express, 
and which few persons ever read without finding it in some 
degree contagious. 

But I must confess that I like those prayers the best 
which have the fewest of Taylor's peculiar ornaments ; 
of those rhetorical arguments which are never so little in 
their place as when addressing the Most High ; — that ac- 
cumulation of circumstances, and those sentences, almost 
endless, which distract attention when it ought to be con- 
centrated, and compel us to take breath in the midst of 
our most earnest aspirations. My meaning will be plain 
to those who compare his four collects, " for subjects when 
their land is overrun by barbarous and wicked people," 
with the few and simple, yet majestic words of the prayer 



A. ^ WiFfr 



164 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

in our church service " in time of war and troubles ;"or 
his " Act of Contrition," preparatory to the sacrament, 
with the General Confession, which is appointed for that 
occasion. 

But the want of taste is still greater, when, in a solemn 
address of the penitent to his Redeemer, the sufferings of 
that Redeemer are enumerated at full length, and with 
circumstances added which rest on no authentic history 
or probable tradition. When we entreat Christ to have mer- 
cy on us.by " his agony and bloody sweat, by his cross and 
passion," — we both quicken our own devotional feelings 
by the mention of what he has done for us, and we plead 
with him, in behalf of our requests, considerations which 
we know to be prevailing. But where do we learn that 
the garden of Gethsemane was " set with nothing but bri- 
ars and thorns ;" that our Lord was " drenched" by his 
enemies in the brook Cedron ; that he was " tormented 
with a stable tytucJc with 7iails, at the fringes of his gar- 
ment ;"tbat his CYOss,"being set in a hollowness of the 
earth, did, in the fall, render his ivounds wider" Sure- 
ly such legends, borrowed- from the " stations" of the 
Christians in the middle ages, and without any authority 
of Scripture or antiquity, are altogether unfit to bespoken 
to Him who is not to be flattered by exaggerated repre- 
sentations of what he has himself done and suffered 
and w r hose revealed and authentic sufferings and patience 
were too great and too glorious, to need the improvements 
of human fancy. 

In all his devotions indeed, Taylor seems to have taken 
St. Augustine as his model, rather than our own or the 
elder liturgies; and both have erred in transferring to 
prayer those ornaments which might, some of them, be 
not improper in a sermon. But w T ho can wonder that it 
should be no easy task for man to find fit words to com- 
mune with the Almighty ? What greater praise could 
Taylor have himself desired than that, in falling short of 
the excellencies of our Common Prayer he has fallen 
short of that only ? 

The Holy Dying is introduced by a Dedication, also 
to Lord Carbery , in which the author in a strain of touch- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 165 

ing eloquence, recommends his work to his patron as that 
which, in manuscript, had been seen and approved by the 
deceased object of his dearest affections. I am treating 
your lordship as a Roman gentleman did St. Augustine 
and his mother ; I shall entertain you in a charnel-house, 
and carry your meditations awhile into the chambers of 

death. " My Lord, it is your dear lady's anniversary, 

and she deserved the biggest honour, and the longest 
memory, and the fairest monument, and the most solemn 
mourning : and in order to it, give me leave, rny lord, to 
cover her hearse with these following sheets. This book 
was intended, first, to minister to her piety ; and she de- 
sired all good people should partake of the advantages 
which are here recorded. She knew how to live rarely 
well and she desired to know how to die and God taught 

her by an experiment." " My lord, both your lordship 

and myself, have lately seen and felt such sorrow of death 
and such sad departure of dearest friends, that is more 
than high time we should think ourselves nearly concern- 
ed in the accidents. Death has come so near to you, as to 
fetch a portion from your very heart ; and now you can- 
not choose but dig your own grave, and place your coffin 
in your eye, when the angel hath dressed your scene of 
sorrow and meditation w T ith so particular and so near an 
object ; and, therefore, as it is my duty, I am come to 
minister to your sorrows, that these may turn into virtues 
and advantages." 

The remainder of the Address is occupied in an expo- 
sition of the principles and motives of his undertaking, in 
which, as might be expected from his known opinions, he 
enlarges on the vanity or uncertainty of a late and sick-bed 
repentance ; the idle folly of the extreme unction of the 
Romish church, and the unauthorised, as he esteems it, 
and unprofitable, though extremely ancient practice of 
prayers for the departed spirit. In some of his assertions, 
more particularly on the first of these topics, he here, as 
elsewhere, is, perhaps, too strict and uncompromising. 
Yet the caution which he founds, in part, on these doc- 
trines, is one which may well tingle in the ears of those 
that live carelessly, — and it is one of which the truth is 
15 



166 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

shown by very many considerations of undoubted andau- 
ful certainty. " My lord ; it is a great art to die well, 
and to be learned by men in health, by them that can dis- 
course and consider; by those whose understanding and 
acts of reason are not adapted with fear or pains : and, 
as the greatest part of death by the preceding years of 
our life, so also, in those years, are the greatest prepara- 
tions to it ; and he that prepares not for death before his 
last sickness, is like him that begins to study philosophy, 
when he is going to dispute publicly, in the faculty." — 
"And, therefore," — " it is intended, by the necessity of 
affairs, that the precepts of dying well be part of the stud- 
ies of them that are in health, and the days of discourse 
and understanding, which, in this case, had another de- 
gree of necessity superadded ; because in other notices, 
an imperfect study may be supplied by a frequent exer- 
cise and renewed experience ; here, if we practice imper- 
fectly once, we shall never recover the error." 

The work itself is divided into seven chapters. The 
first consists of " General Considerations preparatory to a 
Holy and blessed Death," — as of the vanity and short- 
ness of man's life, a knowledge of which should induce us 
to make timely preparation for quitting it ; — of the means 
and opportunities which God has given us for this work, 
and which ; if duly employed, will take off all objection 
that our lives are too short for our necessary preparation : 
and the miseries of man's life in this world, which should 
induce us to depart from it gladly. The second recom- 
mends " a general preparation for a blessed death, by way 
of exercise ;" 1. by always looking for death ; 2. by dai- 
ly providing for it ; and by 3. " a life, severe, holy, and 
under the discipline of the cross ; under the conduct of 
prudence and observation, a life of warfare and sober 
counsels, labour, and watchfulness." In applying these 
precepts to particulars, he recommends, 1. a daily self- 
examination ; 2. a lifelong and constant charity. And, to 
encourage men to endure the burden anH uneasiness of 
the first of these, he remarks, " that we had better bear 
the burden of the Lord than the burden of a base and pol- 
luted conscience," — that " religion cannot be so great a 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 167 

trouble as a guilty soul ; and whatsoever trouble may or 
can be fancied in this or any other action of religion, it is 
only to inexperienced persons." But, he proceeds, — "to 
examine our lives will be no trouble, if we do not intri- 
cate it with businesses of the world, and the labyrinths of 
care and impertinent affairs." — " He that covets many 
things greedily, and snatches at high things ambitiously, 
that despises his neighbour proudly, and bears his crosses 
peevishly, or his prosperity impotently and passionately ; 
he that is prodigal of his precious time, and is tenacious and 
retentive of evil purposes, is not a man disposed to this exer- 
cise : he hath reason to be afraid of his own memory, and 
to dash his glass in pieces, because it must needs repre- 
sent to his eyes an intolerable deformity." — "In the in- 
termin they are impatient of being examined, as a leper is 
of a comb, and are greedy of the world, as children of raw 
fruit ; and they hate a severe reproof, as they do thorns 
in their bed; and they love to lay aside religion, as a 
drunken person does to forget his sorrow ; and all the way 
they dream of fine things, and their dreams prove contra- 
ry, and become the hieroglyphics of an eternal sorrow." 
— " To be cozened in making judgments concerning our 
final condition, is extremely easy; but, if we be cozened, 
we are infinitely miserable." 

His observations on charity, " with its twin daughters, 
alms and forgiveness," are abundantly beautiful and sen- 
sible , and he winds up the second chapter with a descrip- 
tion in the highest strain of poetry, (somewhat too poeti- 
cal, perhaps, for a religious and practical treatise,) of the 
different deaths of the good and wicked man ; in which 
the natural terrors of the one, and the natural hopes of the 
other, are heightened and prolonged, beyond the veil of 
mortality, into the regions where (as some of those legends 
have told, with which the studies of Taylor were familiar,) 
the soul becomes the object of the contest between angels 
and devils. The picture is magnificent ; but he himself 
seems sensible that such speculations may be pursued too 
far, when he winds it up with the following caution. 
" Fearful, and formidable to unholy persons, is the first 
meeting with spirits in their separation. But the victory 



168 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

which holy souls receive by the mercies of Jesus Christ 
and the conduct of angels, is a joy that we must not un- 
derstand till we feel it, and yet such which by an early 
and persevering piety we may secure : but let us inquire 
after it no further, because it is secret !" 

In the next chapter he prescribes remedies against im- 
patience in sickness, and against and immoderate fear of 
death, and adds some general rules to make sickness safe 
and holy, more particularly by continuance in prayer, and 
by an infinite solicitude that we " at no hand commit a 
deliberate sin, or retain any affection to the old." "They 
were sad departures when Tigellinus ; Cornelius Gallus, 
the praetor ; Lewis, the son of Gonzaga, duke of Mantua ; 
Ladislaus, king of Naples ; Speusippus ; Giachetius of 
Geneva, and one of the popes, died in the forbidden em- 
braces of abused women ; or if Job had cursed God and 
so died : or when a man sits down in despair, and in the 
accusation and calumny of the divine mercy ; they make 
their night sad, and stormy, and eternal. When Herod 
began to sink with the shameful torment of his bowels, 
and felt the grave open under him, he imprisoned the no- 
bles of his kingdom, and commanded his sister that they 
should be a sacrifice to his departing ghost. # This was 
an egress fit only for such persons who meant to dwell 
with devils to eternal ages ; and that man is hugely in love 
with sin, who cannot forbear, in the week of the assizes, 
and when himself stands at the bar of scrutiny, and pre- 
pared for his final, never to be reversed sentence. He 
dies suddenly to the worse sense and event of sudden 
death, who so manages his sickness, that even that state 
shall not be innocent." 

The fourth chapter is occupied with rules for the prac- 
tice of the graces proper to a state of sickness ; of patience, 
of faith, of repentance, of justice, and of charity. The 
last treats on the urgent necessity and best manner of vis- 
iting the sick by the ministers of religion ; and he con- 
cludes his subject with the duties of those who survive, as 
to the execution of the will of their departed friends, and 
the moderation and decency of their funerals. 

♦Note, a a 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 169 



>3 



On the whole it may be said, that the "Holy Dying, 
in point of composition, and in the display of the char- 
acteristic beauties of Taylor's style and language, ex- 
ceeds the " Holy Living." The subject admitted of, 
and, indeed, invited him to a greater indulgence in those 
touching and tender visions of affection, of natural ima- 
ges, and of supernatural aspirations, which w T ere familiar 
to his mind, and were apt to intrude unbidden. As a 
practical work, its use may be, perhaps, less obvious and 
less extensive than its companion ; for a sick-bed it is 
too long, and, when men are in health, they read it, are 
delighted, and lay it down again. But, as a manual and 
directory for those whose office it is to converse with the 
sick and dying, its uses are manifold, and its importance 
only to be estimated by those who have themselves given 
some portion of their thoughts and their time to this most 
interesting, most charitable, and, when rightly managed, 
this most edifying and instructive duty of Christian mo- 
rality. And it may often happen ; perhaps it often has 
happened, that men, who have read it for its beauties, have 
been impressed by the lessons it conveys ; and, by begin- 
ning with the " Holy Dying" of Taylor, have been led 
to study his " Holy Living'' with more advantage. It is 
remarkable that, though its general style is more than 
usually poetical, even for its author, the prayers subjoin- 
ed to the different chapters are less so than those either 
in the " Holy Living." or the " Great Exemplar." Per- 
haps he had been told of that which was the main fault 
in his devotional writings. Perhaps the solemnity of the 
subject impressed him too deeply to allow his fancy to 
luxuriate as on former occasions. 

To the same class with the works now described, but 
to a very inferior standard of taste and eloquence, must 
be referred the <•' Contemplations on the State of Man," 
and the treatise on " Christian Consolation." But these 
were posthumous works ; both are ascribed to Taylor on 
unquestionable authority ; both have some passages con- 
ceived and expressed in his peculiar style, and the opin- 
ions delivered in both are so conformable to those of his 
acknowledged works, that there can be little doubt of his 
15* 



170 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D, 

being the author. The former, however, is one which, 
in its present state, he would hardly have sent out to the 
world. It is marked, indeed, throughout, with genuine 
and characteristic piety, It displays, — even more osten- 
tatiously than Taylor was accustomed to do, — a strange 
and almost boundless familiarity with all kinds of read- 
ing, from the fathers and the schoolmen down to the voy- 
ages of the Buccaneers. Its author is evidently one be- 
fore whom the page of ancient and modern history lay 
open ; and whose mind was imbued with a recollection of 
the greatest poets and orators of antiquity. Nor are there 
wanting descriptions conceived in the powerful tone and 
animated feeling of a poet or an orator. But never were 
such powers and acquirements employed to garnish such 
a string of truisms ; — to tell us that time is always on the 
wing; — that all human things are transitory, because 
Thebes and Cuinsay have both fallen into ruins ;* that 
the fame of the greatest of Europeans cannot hope to pass 
the barrier of the Riphean mountains, any more than the 
glory of " Veneatapadino Ragium, king of Narsinga," 
hath sounded through the cities of the west. Life, he 
goes on to prove, is vain, because Homer likened the race 
of men to the leaves of the forest ; and the patriarchs, 
who sojourned on earth eight hundred years, esteemed 
their time but as a shadow. That it is miserable, he 
shows by divers strange instances of disease, such as of 
" Feretrina, queen of the Baruaeans, whose flesh turned 
into maggots and grubs," and of Palaeologus the Second, 
emperor of Constantinople, " whose infirmity, after a 
year's continuance, found no other remedy but to be con- 
tinually vexed and displeased ;— his wife and servants, 
who most desired his health, having no ways to restore it 
but by disobedience, still crossing and opposing him in 
whatever he most desired." That life must have an end, 
and all the beauty and excellency of the body perish ; 
that death is certain, and may come very shortly, he 
proves not only by the examples of Adam, Cain, Me- 
thuselah, and many other eminent persons, who have all 

♦Note QQ. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 171 

had the misfortune to die, but from the experience of 
those who attend on the dead and witness the change of 
the body into corruption. By such considerations as 
these, no man was ever yet moved to think himself in 
danger of death ; to slight the enticements of pleasure, or 
to despise the promises of ambition. He whose heart 
and hope are in the present life, is not the less likely to 
affix a high value on twenty years of worldly exist- 
ence, because some men, who have lived eight hundred 
years, could have been content to live on longer. That 
our fame cannot reach to Japan or China, is no very ap- 
palling consideration to those who have never contem- 
plated a wider theatre of glory than Europe or England. 
And the homage of a single parish, the applause of a 
domestic circle, has ordinarily no less power to excite 
the ambition or the vanity of the human heart, than the 
loudest praises of the mightiest nations. That we must 
die, and one day be turned into dust, the miser and the 
voluptuary are aware already ; but they are considera- 
tions of a different and higher nature which alone have 
power to prevent either the one or the other from indulg- 
ing in those pursuits which enable him to pass that short 
time agreeably. Such considerations, indeed, Taylor 
was not likely to forget ; and after eight chapters filled 
with the ornaments which I have already described, he 
at length arrives at the end of the world, and the terrible 
judgment to which it is a prelude. 

Even here, however, though it was impossible for him 
to avoid some bursts of sublimity, and though the subject 
itself is one which, in its bare enunciation, is sufficient 
to make the blood freeze and the ears tingle, — he has con- 
trived, by a strange and laboured enumeration of circum- 
stances, some unfounded on any scriptural authority, 
some fanciful or fabulous, some utterly trifling and insig- 
nificant, to distract the the attention of his readers as much 
as possible from the grander features of the picture, — 

" melting of the elements with fervent heat/' " the 

coming of the Son of God in the air, with all his holy 
angels with him, 5 ' — " the throne of his glory, 5 '— the 



172 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

" trumpet of God," — and the simple, but awful terms 
of blessing and cursing. 

What commentator on the Revelations, since the time 
of Cornelius a Dapide, has believed that the allegorical 
locusts, described by St. John, are to be devils in that 
shape, who, at the end of the world, shall issue from the 
bottomless pit ? Who, that was really and fully impress- 
ed with the idea of all nature expiring in flames, could 
recollect that the works of Aristotle and Ulpian would 
then be consumed, or that the statue of massy gold 
erected by Gorgias the Leontine (if not already destroy- 
ed,) " shall perish in this great and general conflagra- 
tion ?" Nor, though the circumstance is in itself, pic- 
turesque and well imagined, and though abundant use of 
it has been made in the hymns and paintings of the Ro- 
mish church, will Protestants in general read with much 
faith or interest, that " before the Judge shall be borne 
his standard, which Chrysostom and divers other doc- 
tors affirm shall be the very cross on which he suffer- 
ed." 

The second book is occupied in speculations on the 
glories of heaven and the miseries of hell, — pictures for- 
cibly and ably drawn, but with much of bad taste, and 
still more of presumptuous fancy. Yet the practical ob- 
servations of this latter part are far better than any in the 
preceding; and, while he expatiates on the glowing alle- 
gories employed in Scripture to express the rewards and 
punishments of eternity, as his imagination has a greater 
and more legitimate scope, so the images which he sug- 
gests are less mingled with trifling circumstances, and 
more calculated to impress the mind of his reader with 
exalted delight or terror. On the whole, there are, per- 
haps, more and greater faults of style in the " Contem- 
plations on the State of Man," than in any of Taylor's 
other writings; but there are also beauties of descrip- 
tion and of illustration, which out of his writings, I 
know not w T here to find, and which, if he had written 
this work alone, would have raised him to no vulgar 
height among the divines of the seventeenth century. 

Such is, perhaps, the following description of Christ ; 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 173 

which, if it be too daring for a Christian teacher, is at least 
conceived in a tone of high poetical feeling, and which, in 
the circumstance of the twofold appearance of the same 
divine countenance to the wicked and the good, bears a 
strong resemblance to a fine passage in the Kehama of 
Mr. Southey.* 

"The Saviour of the world shall sit upon a throne of 
great majesty ; his countenance shall be most mild and 
peaceable towards the good, and though the same, most 
terrible towards the bad : out of his sacred wounds shall 
issue beams of light towards the just, full of love and sweet- 
ness but unto sinners full of fire and wrath, who shall 
weep bitterly for the evils which issue from them. So 
great shall be the majesty of Christ, that the miserable 
damned, and the devils themselves, notwithstanding the 
hate they bear him, shall yet prostrate themselves and 
adore him, and, to their greater confusion, acknowledge 
him for Lord and God : and those who have most blas- 
phemed him shall then bow before him, fulfilling the prom- 
ises of the eternal Father, that all things shall be subject 
unto him. 

" This is the end wherein all time is to determine ; and 
this the catastrophe, so fearful unto the wicked, where all 
things temporal are to conclude ; let us, therefore take 
heed how we use them; and that we may use them well 
let us be mindful of this last day, this day of justice and 
calamity, this day of terror and amazement ; the memory 
whereof will serve much for the reformation of our lives ; 
let us think of it and fear it : for it is the most terrible of 
all things terrible, and the consideration most profitable and 
acceptable, to cause in us a holy fear of God, and to con- 
vert us unto him, while I live, I will therefore ever pre- 
serve in my memory this day of terror, that I may here- 
after enjoy security for the whole eternity of God. Above 
all things, 1 will keep before my eyes the last of all days, 
and all the moments of my life I will think, and for ever 
think of eternity." 

The "Christian Consolations" were originally written, as 

♦Note SS. 



174 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

we are informed by the publisher in his preface for the 
private use of a noble an excellent Lady, probably Anne, 
daughter of Sir Heneage Finch, and wife of his patron 
Edward Lord Conway, of whose benevolence and piety 
we read much in the writings of the excellent Henry More. 
She appears so from some parts even of his eulogium, 
and still more, from different slight circumstances men- 
tioned of her in the Rawdon Papers*, to have been a wo- 
man of considerable powers of mind, and of a high and 
seraphical devotion, but credulous and low spirited, suf- 
fering under continued ill health, and indulging, more than 
her husband seems to have patiently endured in the priv- 
ileges and fears, of a hypochondriac invalid and the aus- 
tere retirement of a religious votary : a zealous pupil, at 
one period of her life, of the sublinte absurdities of caba- 
listic Platonism ; at another the confiding patient, of the 
miraculous Greatraiks, and at length, entirely surrounded 
by Quakers and enthusiasts of a yet wilder character. 
To such a person the Consolations which Taylor could 
offer might have been abundantly necessary and valuable 
and, in fact, there is none of his works better calculated 
to bind up, with rational and warrantable comfort, the 
wounds of an afflicted spirit, and to confirm a weak and 
wavering one in the safe and authentic path of faith and 
duty. 

The treatise begins with stating the necessity of apply- 
ing comfort rather than terror to those who are really im- 
pressed with a deep sense of the solemn truths of Chris- 
tianity, and with shortly laying down the sources whence 
Christian comfort may be derived, from faith, from hope, 
from the graces of the Holy Ghost, from prayer, and the 
two sacraments. All these as conducing to our present 
happiness as well as holiness, he discusses in five chap- 
ters, none of them distinguished by the glowing beauties 
of some of his other productions, but all sensible judicious 
and affecting. 

The following passage is interesting, not only from its 
own merit, but as in some respects (in all essential re- 

*Note TT. 



LIFE OF JEHEMY TAYLOR D.D. 175 

spects, indeed,) differing from the language which he 
would have held when he wrote the " Doctrine of Re- 
pentance. " The Christian Consolations, it may be ob- 
served was one of Taylor's last compositions 

" Be merciful unto my sin, for it is great, says David. 
This is not the way to deal with mortal judges, w 7 hen we 
stand at their bar : but this is the way to obtain propitia- 
tion from our God. Heal me, for I am sore wounded, 
cure me, for I am very sick : be merciful unto my sin, 
for it is very great : Zozimus, a Pagan that envied the 
honour of Constantine the Great, makes this tale to dis- 
credit him in his history ; that Constantine had put his 
wife Fausta and his son Crispus to death : after which, 
being haunted with an ill conscience that gave him no 
quiet, he sought among the heathen priests for expiation, 
and they could give him no peace ; but he was told that 
the religion of Christians was so audacious as to promise 
pardon to all sins, were they never so horrible. Is not 
this to commend both the emperor and his religion under 
the form of a dispraise ? For what rest could a troub- 
led mind attain to from the rites and superstitions of Idol 
Gods ? But in the immense treasure of the price of the 
blood of Christ, there is redemption for every sinner that 
repents and believes." 

Not that he, at any time forgot the parts and offices of 
repentance. 

" And beware that you overlook not these multitudes 
of sins of the under size, as if little grief or anxiety w T ould 
serve for them. Are they not numberless grains of sand ? 
And may not a weight of too much sand sink down a ship 
as soon as a burden of too much iron ? The dailiness of 
sin must be bewailed with the dailiness of sorrow ; and 
then, when thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid ; yea, 
thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet." 

The notions which he at this time, entertained as to 
original sin, are also worth extracting. He is speaking of 
the difficulties which oppose us in our way to heaven ; 
and what he now says sufficiently exculpates him from hav- 
ing imbibed the error of the Perfectionists. 

" These difficulties are either in ourselves or in our 



176 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

adventure, in ourselves partly through natural imbecillity, 
partly through contracted impotency. Our natural lan- 
guor, is that of original cantagion, which makes us so weak 
that there is none that doth good, no not one. Which 
is not to be extenuated, as if the malignity of it might be 
be suppressed with a little resistance. It is good to know 
the power of so strong an enemy that we may be fortified 
against it. It is a root of bitterness never to be digged up 
out of corrupt nature ; a coal of fire spitting out sparks 
of temptation continually, as inward to us as the marrow 
is in our bones. Yet there is hope in Christ, to slake this 
fire, though not utterly, in this life, to quench it. There- 
fore since God is our help against the insurrection of this 
rebellious sin, let us be comforted in his help and not in 
excuses. For we must not plead our personal maladies 
and natural inclinations, and think that God will take it 
for an answer, and ask no more. To what purpose are 
the pourings out of the Spirit, but that what is wickedly 
inbred from our conception, should be shaken off from the 
tree, and a better fruit spring up in its place from the in- 
crease of God ?" 

His observations on spiritual influence, on prayer, and 
on the sacraments, are all excellent. On baptism he 
states that — 

" Spiritual regeneration is that which the Gospel hath 
set forth to be the principal correlative of baptism. O 
happy it is for us to be born again by water and the Holy 
Ghost ! For better it were never to be born than not 
to be born twice. I have assurance that the spirit is not 
disjoined from the water, for Christ's word cannot fail that 
we shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. But ye are 
washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the 
name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. 
There is another cavil made by some, that notwithstand- 
ing baptism, original sin remains in us all the days of our 
life. True, the sin is not blotted out in the infant ; but 
it is blotted out of the book of God. And, as actual sins 
are pardoned for Christ's sake, yet it cannot be brought 
to pass that they should never be done which are done 
and past, but it is enough that they shall not be imput- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 177 

ed ; so original sin cleaves unto us : it is not cast out, for 
I feel it in me, but it is remitted." 

Enough however, has already been instanced to show 
the value of this long neglected and almost unknown man- 
ual, of which one single copy only was known to exist, in 
the Bodleian Library , from which the reprint is taken which 
appears in the present volume. I will only give two 
more extracts. The one is so characteristic of Taylor's 
manner, as to be, in itself, almost sufficient to establish 
the authenticity of the volume. 

" Mark the rain that falls from above, and the same 
shower that, dropped out of one cloud, increaseth sundry 
plants in a garden, and severally according to the condi- 
tion of every plant. In one stalk it makes a rose, in 
another a violet, divers in a third, and sweet in all. So the 
Spirit works its multiformous effects in several complex- 
ions, and all according to the increase of God." 

The other I do not quote as praising or agreeing w T ith 
it. It is a hard, and, I conceive, an unfounded statement 
of, at least in one very important instance, the spiritual 
state of the heathen. He maintains that neither Jews, 
nor Mahometans, nor Pagans, get any thing by that pray- 
er to which the promise is made, "Ask, and ye shall have." 
— " Such a faith as possessed idolaters is not that which 
impetrates mercy from God." 

Surely the instance, which he himself brings forward, 
of Nineveh, is a proof that even idolaters, and c a fortio- 
ri,' Mahometans and, Jews by prayer and repentance of 
some of their most crying sins, may obtain from God very 
eminent and illustrious mercies. 

His Sermons next offer themselves to cur observation, 
sixty-four in number, of which all, even those which were 
preached on public and political occasions, may be regar- 
ded as in a great degree practical. Of them a less ac- 
curate examination is necessary, inasmuch as no sermons 
of that age, perhaps of any ether age, are mere frequent- 
ly on the tables and in the hands of general readers. To 
praise them would be idle and unnecessary ; and their 
faults, like their merits, are obvious even to a careless ob- 
server. To estimate, however, those merits sufficiently, 
16 



178 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

it is necessary to bear in mind the difficulties attendant on 
this style of composition, and the few good models (be- 
sides St. Chrysostom, whom in many respects he much 
resembled,) which Taylor, at the commencement of his 
career, had before him. 

It would be a long enquiry, and one which is by no 
means necessary to my subject, to enter into the causes 
of that remarkable decay of eloquence, which may be said 
to have taken its rise among the Greeks and Romans, 
from the time at which the usurpation of the Caesars had 
reduced their world to the sullen calm of despotism. 
This deficiency, beyond a doubt, as it extended to Pa- 
gans as well as Christians, and was felt while Christianity 
was as yet politically insignificant, arose from causes dis- 
tinct from any peculiar habits of the Christian church. 

Yet, so far as this last was concerned, (in which the 
popular form of government, and the sermons preached in 
their assemblies, might have led us to expect a different re- 
sult,) it is evident that the system of homilies, of which de- 
scription are most of the addresses of the fathers to their 
congregations, though of all others, perhaps, the best fitted 
for general edification, was in itself unfavourable to the ex- 
ercise of oratorical talent. 

A running commentary requires conciseness, and even 
abruptness ; and the necessity of discussing many differ- 
ent passages in succession, is almost inconsistent with a 
connected and lucid chain of argument, with a brilliant 
peroration, or a comprehensive exposition of general prin- 
ciples. 

And there were other causes which tended still more to 
corrupt the taste of preachers ; of which the first was that 
fondness, derived from the cabalistic Jews, of detecting 
an internal sense in the plainest passages of Scripture: 
and still more, the custom of applying such passages "by 
way of accommodation," to subjects the most foreign from 
their known meaning, — of w T hich a good many instances 
may be found in Jerome, in succeeding fathers still more, 
and, most of all, in the divines of what are called the dark 
ages. 

Thus, when Jerome allegorizes, in his epistle to Fabio- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 179 

la, the different ornaments of the Jewish high priest into 
the different virtues and graces of a Christian ; when 
Athanasius finds out the penitent thief on the cross in the 
second verse of the second chapter of Habakkuk ; when 
Gregory the Great makes Jericho at once a symbol of the 
moon and of our mortal nature, and, above all, when Ber- 
nard derives the word diabolus from " two pockets,"* it 
is difficult to believe that they can have intended these 
fancies as argumentative, or to prove to their hearers any 
thing but the talents and acuteness of their teachers. 
Such, however, were the favourite ornaments of Chris- 
tian orators for a long lapse of ages ; and this taste, which 
of course, by degrees, degenerated into mere quibbling, 
was not yet extinct, as we learn from Echard's Contempt 
of the Clergy, in England during the life of Taylor, and 
prevailed, if we may believe the author of " Fray Gerun- 
dio," in Spain at a much later period. 

Another cause which materially contributed to detract 
from the elegance and eloquence of sermons, was the sla- 
vish subjection under which all Christendom was brought 
by the schoolmen, whose dicta were quoted as, in all ca- 
ses, a definitive authority, and whose subtle distinctions 
and endless subdivisions were,no less than peculiar and tech- 
nical phraseology, made the model of style as w T ell as the 
landmarks of intellect. 

I am far, indeed, from being inclined to join in an indis- 
criminate neglect or ridicule of those laborious and able 
men, whose works, to judge from a very small acquaint- 
ance w T ith them, are often models of fair and patient in- 
vestigation, and whose errors are rather from their imper- 
fect means of knowledge, than from any defect in (what 
they principally professed) their mode of arranging knowl- 
edge already acquired. Still farther am I from considering 
a familiarity with the forms and principles of logic as oth- 
erwise than most advantageous to whoever would think 
accurately, or express himself with clearness. 

But the unseasonable application and ostentatious pro- 
ductions of these studies, at the first perplexed an eminent 

*NoteUU. 



180 life of Jeremy taylor, d*ik 

truth in a multiplicity of insignificant distinctions, so the 
second resembled the fault of those unskilful painters who 
strip the , skins from their figures, that the muscles and 
anatomy may be admired. The accuracy of the skeleton 
should be traced in the correct proportion of the perfect 
limbs ; the logical precision of the orator should be felt in 
the invulnerable nature of his arguments ; but neither the 
bones nor the syllogisms need be exposed to view, in the 
finished picture or the finished oration. Yet thus unprofi- 
tably minute, thus repulsively scholastic, are by far the 
greater part of the most eminent divines from the middle 
ages down to the civil war ; while those others who, like 
the Franciscans, the early reformers, and the puritans found 
a more popular style indispensably necessary to their pur- 
poses, sought popularity in a homeliness of language and 
allusion ; in a merriment misapplied, and a robust and 
striking, but rustic familiarity with sacred things, which 
often impresses us with its vigour and amuses us with its 
quaintness ; though, at the present day, no preacher in his 
Senses would venture on it, nor would any audience en- 
dure it. Even when the usual style of other compositions 
was singularly flowing and majestic, these errors of stiff- 
ness or bad taste continued long to cleave to the pulpit ; 
and though the homilies of the church are early an illus- 
trious exception, abundant specimens of all the several 
faults which I have noticed may be found in most sermons 
from the Reformation down to the time of Taylor. 

Of these very faults, indeed, though he himself, in his 
subsequent works, has almost entirely escaped the con- 
tagion, we find, in his earliest Sermon on the Gunpowder 
Treason, some evident traces, though, even here, they 
are blended with and redeemed by merits, which gave 
ample promise of the fruit which his maturer years might 
supply. 

The text is that verse of St. Luke, (chapter ix. verse 
54,) in which the disciples of our Lord ask permission to 
call down fire from heaven on the inhospitable Samaritan 
villagers. In applying this passage to the event which he 
commemorates, he proposes to discuss, first, the persons by 
whom, in either case respectively, (that of the instance 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 181 

recorded in the Gospel, and that of the gunpowder con- 
spiracy,) the proposition was made to bring destruction on 
men of a different religion : secondly, the reasons alleged 
for such a proposition : thirdly, the persons to whom the 
proposition was made: fourthly, the nature of the propo- 
sition itself; fifthly, the example or precedent which was 
pleaded for it. 

Here is enough, and more than enough, of the formality 
of scholastic arrangement; but I fear we shall not find 
much of the clearness and accuracy which alone can make 
such a formal arrangement valuable. Of these heads, the 
greater number are merely solemn trifling, inasmuch as the 
answers to them are either too self-evident to admit of 
discussion, or too remote in their bearing on the general 
course of his argument, to be valuable to the purposes of 
a logician. The last topic of inquiry, (the example or 
precedent of Elias,) which might have been made extreme- 
ly interesting and instructive, as involving the same grand 
question of religious persecution which Taylor afterwards 
discussed so ably, he, in this place, merely notices without 
any discussion whatever. In treating of the remainder, 
and in comparing the relative situation of the apostles and 
the Romish clergy, he is not satisfied with the real point 
of similarity in both being professed followers of the Mes- 
siah : but runs into a string of frigid conceits to show that 
the proposal was in both instances of apostolic origin, inas- 
much as, though the immediate contrivers of the powder 
plot were laymen, yet the Church of Rome (originally 
founded by the apostle Peter,) having allowed and ap- 
plauded similar acts of atrocity, had given the first encour- 
agement to such a project ! Taylor may be thought to have 
forgotten both the new and the old organon when he quib- 
bled thus egregiously ; but this was the style of ornament 
in favour with his age, of which I have prepared the read- 
er to expect some instances, and which was in fact, in- 
tended to prove nothing but the wit and ingenuity of the 
precaher. 

This trifling is, however, mixed up with much graver 
and more powerful matter. The proofs which he advanc- 
es to show the opinion of the Romish church as to the 
16* 



182 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

legality of deposing and destroying heretical sovereigns/ 
(from Saunders, who advised a crusade against them, to 
Emanual Sa, who justified their assassination, and Mari- 
ana, who recommended poison as the surest means of ac- 
complishing it,) are, unhappily, but too cogent and con- 
clusive. But these are here clearly out of their place, 
and, according to his own proposed arrangement, belong 
more properly to the second branch of the inquiry ; in 
which, (after examining and combating the causes alleged 
by the Romanists themselves for the atrocious attempt in 
question, and the general disaffection of their party, which 
led them to it,) he insists, that it is futile to speak of our 
severities as having been the occasion of the gunpowder- 
plot, when their own accursed principles, if not necessari- 
ly or universally, yet naturally and regularly conducted 
and compelled them, even as a matter of reason and con- 
science, to the dethronement and destruction, by any and 
every means, of heretical sovereigns and senates. 

In combating, however, the pretexts for discontent al- 
leged by the Papists, as arising from the conduct of the 
English government towards their sect, the preacher is not 
altogether successful. Thus the fine imposed on recusants, 
for not attending the public worship of the national church, 
he endeavours to clear from the stain of religious perse- 
cution, by urging that such recusancy could not have pro- 
ceeded from religious motives. The Romanists, he ob- 
serves, had actually and usually attended the service of 
the Church of England, from the first to the eleventh year 
of Queen Elizabeth, when Pius the Fifth sent forth his 
bull for the excommunication and dethronement of that 
princess. '5 It is plain, " he argues, " that religion did not 
make them absent themselves from our churches, unless 
they had changed their religion since the bull came over. 
For, if religion could consist with their communicating 
with us before the bull, (as it is plain it did,) then why 
not after the bull, unless it be part of their religion to 
obey the Pope rather than God, commanding us to obey 
our prince ?" 

This is, surely, a quibble unworthy both of the cause 
and its advocate. Taylor knew perfectly well that it is a 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 183 

part of the religion of the sect in question to deny that 
God has given to the temporal prince any power whatev- 
er, " circa res sacras," and to believe that all authority of 
this kind, under God, was centered in the Pope alone. 
And he must have perceived that, though they might law- 
fully attend the ordinances of the national religion, so long 
as that religion was tolerated or not condemned by the 
Pope ; and though, in acting thus, they showed a lauda- 
ble desire to obey their temporal sovereign as far as pos- 
sible, yet when the king and the Pope issued contrary 
mandates on such subjects, they were bound by their re- 
ligion to obey the latter rather than the former. The 
question was not, whether they acted reasonably in re- 
ceiving and maintaining such an article of faith, — but 
whether this w 7 as an article of faith for acting on which 
they were punished ; and, this being certain, it is alto- 
gether as certain that the mulct imposed on the popish re- 
cusants was, to all intents and purposes " soul money/' 
and liable, as such, to all the unanswerable objections 
which Taylor has himself elswhere brought forward 
against the principle of persecution for conscience sake. 

He is more fortunate, however in his appology for the 
severities denounced against the publishers of the bull in 
question, and against the toleration of the Romish priests 
in a land whose tranquility their daily conduct menaced. 
The publication of the bull was evidently seditious, and 
what no sovereign could endure without virtually renoun- 
cing the sovereignty. The priests were the avowed 
agents of a foreign and hostile potentate, and had already 
begun those practices against the authority and life of the 
queen, which were only rendered more atrocious by the 
fact that they were many of them her native subjects. 
And, in the exposure which follows of the language held, 
the doctrines sanctioned, and the line of conduct pursued 
by the Romish hierarchy towards Elizabeth, and other 
princes similarly situated, the author may be said to have 
almost justified the severe reprobation with which he 
winds up this part of his discourse, that " so far from its 
being strange that their people call for fire to consume the 
Protestants, it would be rather a wonder if they did not ;" 



184 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

and that, " although it be no rare and unusual a thing for 
a Paptist to be defacto, loyal or duteous to his prince, yet 
it is a wonder he is so, since such doctrines have been 
taught by such masters." 

In considering the persons to whom the contrivers of 
the plot intrusted their intentions, their confessors, namely, 
and spiritual guides, he discusses at some length, and 
with great learning and acuteness, the question of how far 
those confessors were bound to conceal or disclose the 
horrible secret communicated to them. He maintains, 
first, that the communication made to Garnet did not come 
under the character of a confession at all in the ecclesias- 
tical sense of the term ; inasmuch as it was not the ac- 
knowledgement of a sin already passed and then repented 
of, but the proposition of a measure prospectively deter- 
mined on, which the propounders did not regard as sinful, 
but on the expediency of which they consulted their spir- 
itual guides ; and which, notwithstanding the contrary 
opinion of those guides, they still continued to meditate. 
It was allowable, therefore, in Garnet and his brethren, 
even on their own principles ; and, if allowable, it was, 
on every principle of justice andcharity,incumbent on them 
to disclose the crime which they had no other means of 
preventing. 

But this is not all : for, secondly, he examines into the 
antiquity and authority of that rule which they pretend 
for the inviolable secrecy and sanctity of confession ; and 
proves most triumphantly, from the admission of the best 
casuists of their own sect, that there are certain cases in 
which confessions may and must be divulged : as, where it 
is necessary to prevent an incestuous marriage ; to bring 
to light a lurking heresy; or where the penitent himself 
allows the confessor to reveal his secret. But treason, 
he argues, is, at least, as criminal and dangerous as incest 
or heresy ; and if the permission of the individual dispen- 
ses with the oath of the priest, much more will this be 
the effect of the prior relation in which both priest and 
penitent stand to the nation of which they are members, 
and the sovereign to whom they owe allegiance. And, in 
the particular case of treason, he shows, that, both in 



I 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 185 

France and at Rome, it has been usual, and always accoun- 
ted allowable, to reveal such confessions as involved the 
death of the sovereign. And that the obligation to keep all 
confession secret, rests, in fact, on no other or stronger sane* 
tion than that which binds every good man to conceal, in or* 
dinary cases, a secret imparted to him, he shows, by the an- 
cient practice of both the Eastern and Western Church- 
es. Both these, he observes, not only authorized, but, in 
some instances, enjoined the priest to reveal to the whole 
congregation whatever more crying sins had been, under 
this seal, communicated to him. He proves that it was, 
at one time, esteemed the duty of the confessor to impart 
to the church all the transgressions which thus came to 
his knowledge ; and that the decree of St. Leo, which 
relaxed this inconvenient obligation, extended no farther 
than to premit and enjoin the priest, at his discretion, to 
keep some sins secret, " lest men, out of inordinate love 
to themselves, should rather refuse to be washed than buy 
their purity with so much shame." He concludes, there- 
fore, that the confessors of Digby and his associates were 
bound, on every principle of their own canons, and of 
general Christianity, to divulge the meditated treason. 

The rest of the sermon is occupied in descanting on the 
nature and enormity of the destruction which was contem- 
plated, and he concludes with a pathetic exhortation to 
thankfulness and piety. 

Of the affectation and frigid pedantry which prevaded 
most of the writings of that age, and from which Taylor,in 
his subsequent works, to a great degree emancipated 
himself, several instances may be found in this sermon. 
Sometimes the preacher indulges himself in the use of for- 
eign terms and modish barbarisms, such as no judicious 
orator would introduce into a solemn or pathetic compo- 
sition. " There is fire in the text," he tells us, " con- 
suming fire, like that whose antevorta we this day com- 
memorate." After the coming of the Messiah, the spirit 
ofElias is said to be " out of date ;" and in the Jesuits, 
"we may quickly find out more than zpareil for St. James 
and St. John, the Boanerges of the text." Such terms 
as these have neither the homely vigour of colloquial 



186 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

English, nor the pomp and gravity of derivatives from 
the learned languages : — they were, in their day, the mere 
cant of travelled foppery, and were the last remnants of 
that Babylonish euphuism, which from the example of 
the court, had infected the language of the bar, the parlia- 
ment, and the pulpit. 

Sometimes, in his attempt (a very needless one) to ex- 
aggerate the enormity of the transaction, he lays a stress on 
circumstances in themselves merely indifferent. If a base 
and cowardly destruction of the whole nobility of a coun- 
try were resolved on, it mattered little or nothing by what 
agent their death was to be effected. Taylor, however, 
is of a different opinion, and makes it a leading aggrava- 
tion of the crime of the conspirators, that they designed 
to employ so devlish an agent as gunpowder. The apos- 
tles, he tells us, " would have had their fire from heaven, 
but these men's conversation was not there ; Ta xaTwdev, 
things from beneath, from an artificial hell, but breathed 
from the natural and proper, were in all their thoughts !" 
Sometimes the preacher is facetious — " If his Holiness be 
wronged in the business, I have no hand in it. The 
speech was avouched for as authentic by the approbation 
of three doctors. Let them answer it. I wash my hands 
of the accusation." — Again : " If to their anathemas they 
add some faggot of their own and gunpowder, His odds 
but we may be consumed indeed !" 

There are other passages, however, far more in the 
usual and appropriate style of Taylor, and which should 
abundantly redeem this earliest of his writings from indis- 
criminate neglect or censure. That cause, he says, bore a 
fair excuse, which moved James and John to a wrath so in- 
considerate. " It would have disturbed an excellent pa- 
tience to see him whom, but just before, they beheld 
transfigured in a glorious epiphany upon the mount, to be 
so neglected by a company of hated Samaritans, as to be 
forced to keep his vigils where nothing but the welkin 
should have been his roof, nor any thing to shelter his 
precious head from the descending dews of heaven." — 
"When first," he shortly afterwards observes, " when 
first 1 considered they were apostles, I w 7 ondered that they 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 187 

should be so intemperately angry. But, when I perceiv- 
ed they were so angry, I wondered not that they sinned. 
Not the privilege of an apostolical spirit, nor the nature 
of angels, not the condition of immortality, can guard from 
the danger of sin ; but, if we are over-ruled by passion, 
we almost subject ourselves to its necessity. It was not, 
therefore, without reason, that the Stoics affirmed wise 
men to be void of passions ; for, sure I am, the inordina- 
tion of any passion is the first step to folly. And, although 
of them, as of waters of a muddy residence, we may make 
good use, and quench our thirst, if we do not trouble 
them ; yet, upon any ungentle disturbance, we drink down 
mud instead of a clear stream, and the issues of sin and sor- 
row, certain consequents of a temerarious or inordinate 
anger." 

In the conclusion, after instancing " the sacrilegious 
ruins of the neighbouring temples, which must needs have 
perished in the flame/ 5 — " the disturbing the ashes of our 
entombed kings, devouring their bodies like sepulchral 
dogs ;" and observing that " these are but minutes in re- 
spect of the ruin prepared for the living temples," he 
proceeds : 

{: Starg-em sed istam nom tulit 
Christus, cadentum principum 
Impune, ne forsan sui 
Patris periret fabrica. 

"Egro quae potuit lingua retexere 
Laudes, Christe, tuas, qui domitum struis, 
Infidum populum cum duce perfido.* 

"Let us, then return to God the cup of thanksgiving, 
he having poured forth so largely to us of the cup of sal- 
vation ! — We cannot want wherewithal to fill it. Here is 
matter enough for an eternal thankfulness, for the expres- 
sion of which a short life is too little ; but let us here be- 
gin our hallelujahs, hoping to finish them hereafter, where 
the many choirs of angels will fill the concert. 

On this first production of Jeremy Taylor's abilities I 
have bestowed a large, and what may seem perhaps to 

* Note I. 



188 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

some, a disproportionate share of notice. But it is his 
first production. Its very faults belong to the history of 
the time, and increase our respect for his subsequent and 
more illustrious labours ; and the topics which it discusses 
are of no slight or transient importance ; but have refer- 
ence to disputes of which we are not likely to see the end, 
to principles which, in every age of the church, are im- 
portant. And though his style had not yet received its 
full polish, and though his arguments are, in some instanc- 
es, not well concocted, the facts which he has collected in 
the history and philosophy of religion are such as to mark 
his Sermon on the Gunpowder Treason for one of the 
most important and powerful attacks on the Jesuits and the 
Romish hierarchy. 

This sermon, which at first appeared seperately, was 
never, I believe, reprinted by Taylor during his life-time, 
his next publication of the same kind was a collection of 
fifty-two Sermons, described as " a Yearly Course," or 
EviavTog, divided into two volumes, for the winter and 
summer half years ; of which that was first published 
which now stands last in order. Why he thus denomina- 
ted them I am at a loss to conjecture ; since, w T ith the ex- 
ception of two Sermons for Whitsunday, and three on the 
Advent of Christ to Judgment, there are none which, ei- 
ther by text or matter, are more adapted to one day than 
another ; while even the solemn festivals of Christmas, 
Easter, and Trinity, are passed over without any particu- 
lar notice. Nor is this deficiency supplied by any of the ser- 
mons in the supplement : these are, withthree exceptions 
which might have been preached at any time, preached 
on different local topics, or before different public bodies ; 
but none of them are for those days when an appropriate 
composition is ordinarily called for by the practice of the 
Church of England. The cause of this singularity lean- 
not conjecture. If he had not named Whitsunday, it 
might have been ascribed to a necessary compliance with 
the prejudices of the faction then in power, whose aver- 
sion from all such ecclesiastical distinction of days is suffi- 
ciently known to have been excessive. But, when one 
festival of the Church was named, it could have, in this 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 189 

respect, availed him nothing to pass over in silence ; and 
in his other writings he has paid no such respect to the 
prejudices of his contemporaries. I own, I regret the want 
of some such discourses in the present collection ; because, 
with Taylor's peculiar talent for whatever is picturesque 
or poetical in religion, we might have anticipated from 
him some very splendid displays of oratory and pathos, 
when discussing those awful images of power, of mercy, 
and of suffering, w T hich the return of days like these is in- 
tended to recall more forcibly. And when it is recollect- 
ed how greatly we have most of us been affected, by the 
conformity observed between the day and its devotions ; 
the Scriptures read, and the sermons preached on such 
occasions, we may well conceive to how good purpose 
these advantages must have been employed by the im- 
passioned and affectionate eloquence of Jeremy Taylor. 

Nor is this the only circumstance which may, at first, 
surprise us. It may still more excite our wonder that such 
sermons as these should have been addressed to any but 
an audience exclusively academical. An university alone, 
and an university of no ordinary erudition, appears the 
fitting theatre for discourses crowded, as these are, with 
quotations from the classics and the fathers ; with allu- 
sions to the most recondite topics of moral and natural 
philosophy ; with illustrations draw r n from all the arts and 
sciences, and from history ancient and modern, clothed in 
a language rich and harmonious, indeed, beyond all con- 
tempoary writers, but abounding in words of foreign ex- 
traction, and in unusual applications of those which are of 
native origin. Nor should I have hesitated to conclude, 
that most of Taylor's sermons had been really composed 
and intended only for an academical audience, had not the 
author himself informed us, in his title-page and his dedi- 
cation to Lord Carbery, that they were preached at Gol- 
den Grove, to the family and domestics of his patron ; or, 
at most, to a few gentlemen and ladies of that secluded 
neighbourhood, and to as many of the peasantry on the 
estate as could understand English. It is true, perhaps, 
that in those days a learned style of preaching was not 
only more frequently affected by divines, but more gen- 
17 



190 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

erally popular with their auditories, than it has been dur- 
ing the last century ; and that they who could least un- 
derstand a sermon, were not, therefore, the least ready to 
applaud it. The popularity of some preachers has de- 
scended to our times, who seem to have had scarcely any 
other stock in trade than a quantity of good and sufficient 
Greek and Hebrew quotations; while, on the other hand, 
the simplicity and unaffected plainness of the admirably 
learned Pocock was regarded by the rustics of his parish, 
as a proof that, " though a kind and neighbourly man, he 
was no Latinist." Taylor, however, had no need of such 
arts, and was by far too conscientious to employ them. 
He was too good, as well as too wise ; too earnestly intent on 
amending the hearts and saving the souls of his hearers, 
to have amused their ears with that which could not reach 
their understanding ; and I am therefore much inclined to 
believe that in preparing his sermons for the press, he 
materially changed them from the compositions which he 
had delivered to his rustic auditory in South Wales: or, 
that they had really been, in the first instance, designed 
for the university pulpit; and that, when preaching them 
at Golden Grove, he had recourse to such extemporaneous 
omissions or alterations as suited the abilities and circum- 
stances of his congregation. 

Such omissions or alterations would, in fact leave the 
essential merits of the discourse in a great measure unim- 
paired. The tenour of its reasoning would remain unbro- 
ken, though the recondite illustrations were withdrawn. 
Those illustrations and images which, as is the case with 
no small number in Taylor's works, are borrowed from 
natural objects, would produce a yet more powerful effect 
in proportion as those objects w T ere familiar to his hearers. 
The practical wisdom of his counsels ; his awful denun- 
ciations of God's judgments against sin ; his admirable 
topics of consolation to the penitent; his affectionate 
earnestness, and his yet more persuasive piety, would lose 
none of their power if delivered in more homely language ; 
and those persons are mistaken, who apprehend that a 
congregation in the humble ranks of life are unequal to 
the task of following up the most accurate chain of reason- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 191 

ing, if conveyed in words of which they know the mean- 
ing. To lay down a general rule for the selection of such 
a popular language is not, indeed, very easy ; but it will 
be found, for the most part, that words of Saxon or Teu- 
tonic derivation, as they are more forcible and expressive 
to all English ears, so to an uninstructed English ear they 
are usually far more intelligible than those terms, (how- 
ever familliar to the educated part of the nation,) which, 
are of French or Latin origin. 

But whatever the sermons of Taylor may have been 
as delivered from the pulpit and to a miscellaneous or 
vulgar auditory, it is certain that, as essays for the closet, 
and as intended for those into whose hands they usually 
fall, few compositions can be named so eminently distin- 
guished by fancy, by judgment, by learning, and by pow- 
ers of reasoning ; few, where the mind is so irresistibly 
allured, if not to agree with the author, at least to think 
well of him; or where so much luxuriance of imagination, 
and so much mellowness of style, are made the vehicles 
of divinity so sound, and holiness so practical. Those 
persons will, in fact, be much deceived, (they may be, 
perhaps, deceived to their own infinite advantage,) who 
take up his sermons as a book of amusements only ; in 
which little is to be found but quaint singularities of ex- 
pression, and pedantic though brilliant and characteristic 
ornament. As little will those do justice to their mer- 
its, who draw back from their perusal in the expectation 
of finding precepts too rigid and ascetic for our nature, 
or the general frame of society ; the dicta of one who had 
forgotten or never experienced the temptations of the 
world, or the inexpediency of laying down an impractica- 
ble measure of duty. No writer, with whose works I am 
aquainted, has spoken more wisely, or with a greater 
knowledge, of the human heart; none more moderately, 
or (except in those particulars where the souls of men are 
really endangered.)more indulgently, than Taylor in his 
Evuxviog ; and, while his sermons on " Godly Fear" lay 
bare with a needful and scrupulous austerity the ruinous 
self-deceptions of a pretended repentance, and of that 
transient sorrow for sin or its consequences, which too 



192 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D . D. 

many mistake for amendment, no writer has given a more 
just and beautiful picture of the goodness and gentleness 
of our Almighty Parent, than may be found in his dis- 
courses on the Miracles of the Divine Mercy." Of the 
rest, the " House of Feasting/ 5 and the " Marriage Ring," 
are perhaps the most characteristic, and distinguished by 
the greatest liveliness of fancy ; while a very curious and 
difficult question is acutely and profitably discussed in 
the sermon on "the Entail of Curses." And, (though 
some of his positions are here, as on former occasions, 
laid down with too great and unqualified severity.) many 
awful and alarming truths are powerfully expressed, where 
he is treating of what he considers " The Invalidity of a 
Death-bed Repentance." Of all, the most likely to be 
practically useful are, perhaps, the two on ,, the Flesh 
and the Spirit," and those on the "Growth of Sin, and the 
several Estates of Sinners." All, however, may be read 
with profit ; and, by a man of genius, none can be read 
without delight and admirtion. 

To the Eviavxog the ^exag spfloXifictiog appeared as a 
supplement, several years after, with a Dedication to the 
high minded and stately Dutchess of Ormond who, though 
profuse in her expenses, and haughty in her demeanour, 
was fond of religious reading, and really endowed with 
many distinguished and some amiable qualities. It con- 
sists, (l),of three Sermons on subjects referring to general 
practice, preached in Christ Church, Dublin, but adapted 
to any occasion and to any well-informed audience ; (2). 
Three Sermons on Public Occasions, already spoken of, 
at an Episcopal Consecration, before the Irish Parliament, 
and before the University of Dublin ; (3.) Two funeral 
Sermons, on the Death of the Primate, and on that of 
the Countess of Carbery ; and, (4.) Two, to the Clergy 
of his Diocese, on the duties of the Christian Ministry. 

They are followed, in the present edition, by his first 
published sermon, and by the Funeral Sermon in Mem- 
ory of Sir George Dalestone. Of these, the Sermons 
preached before the Parliament and the University of Dub- 
lin have been sufficiently noticed, as well as the Funeral 
Sermon on Archbishop Branhall : they are parts, indeed, 



LIFE OF JEREMY tAYLrOR D.D. 193 

of Taylor's public life, and could not, without improprie- 
ty, be seperated from it. For the rest ; those preached 
at the Funerals of Lady Carbery and Sir George Dal- 
stone, are remarkable not only for the beauty of their 
language and imagery, (in which respect the former is 
not surpassed by any of his most elaborate productions,) 
but for the powerful and persuasive manner in which, 
while rendering due honour to the dead, they warn and 
instruct the living, and improve the moments of grief and 
serious thought to the lasting advantage of their hearers, 

In other compositions of a similar character, we often 
find the main body of the discourse engrossed by a labour- 
ed panegyric : while the religious lesson is crowded into 
a narrow corner,and treated as an accessory only. Such 
funeral sermons as these can lay claim to no further merit 
than belongs to a hat-band or a mourning-ring, — mere 
testimonies of respect and regret, in which the friends of 
the deceased alone are concerned ; or which have, at 
best, no general value but what arises from the material 
workmanship. 

But in the labours of Taylor, the foremost place was 
always given to the glory of God and the salvation of his 
hearers. From the death of his patroness, he takes occa- 
sion, (in the first instance, and before he describes her 
virtues,) to enlarge, in a strain of moving eloquence, on 
the uncertainty of life, and the method of enabling our- 
selves to meet death hopefully. And his account of Sir 
George Dalstone is introduced by an able and interesting 
inquiry on the sources whence the heathen obtained their 
knowledge of a life to come ; on the usual lot of holy men 
in the present life ; and on the abode and condition of the 
soul between death and the resurrection. 

The two Sermons on the "Minister's Duty in Life and 
Doctrine," may yet call for some observations ; inasmuch 
as, in the first of these, while enforcing, with much earn- 
est and awful eloquence, the paramount necessity of per- 
sonal holiness in the clergy, he has been hurried to a 
length inconsistent with sound reason, with the analogy of 
Scripture and the usual faith of Christians. 

After magnifying in a strain which is not unusual with 
17* 



194 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

him, the dignity of the ministerial office, by the consider- 
ation that, as Christians in general are chosen and sancti- 
fied from the world, so the clergy are chosen and sanctifi- 
ed from the general body of Christians, he urges, with 
great force and justice, that, — 

"If, of every one of the Christian congregation, God 
expects a holiness that mingles with no unclean thing ;" 
— " If he accepts of none of the people, unless they have 
within them the conjugation of all the Christian graces ;" 
— " If he hath made them lights in the world, and salt of 
the earth, to enlighten others with their good example, 
and to teach them and invite them by holy discourses and 
wise counsels ; ,J — " What is it think ye, or with what words 
is it possible to express what God requires of you ? They 
are to be examples of good life to one another; but you 
are to be examples even of the examples themselves." 

This is as true as it is eloquent and awful. He al- 
so urges, with great reason, that a wicked life is the 
greatest impediment to the success of any man's ministry ; 
inasmuch as his bad conscience is a continued reproof of 
his own teaching, and his bad example a no less continu- 
ed dissuasive to his people's learning. Him, therefore, 
who teaches what he does not practise, he describes as 
" sitting in the chair of the scornful ;" as " mocking God, 
and mocking the people ;" as " destroying the benefits of 
the people, and diminishing the blessings of God." 

What follows, however, is of more doubtful character : 
" This is but the least evil : there is yet much worse be- 
hind. A wicked minister cannot, with success and bene- 
fit, pray for the people of his charges." — "This is the 
priest's office; and if the people lose the benefits of this, 
they are undone." — " What, then, do you think will be 
the event of those assemblies, where he that presents the 
prayers of all the people is hateful to God ? Will God re- 
ceive the oblation that is offered to him by an impure hand ; 
and can we hope that the minister who, with wrath, and 
doubting, and covetousness, presents the people's prayers, 
that even those intercessions shall pierce the clouds and 
ascend the mercy-seat, and descend with a blessing?" — 
"The ecclesiastical order is by Christ appointed to rain- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 195 

ister his Holy Spirit to the people ; the priests in baptism, 
and the holy eucharist, and prayer, and intercession ; the 
bishop in all these, and in ordination beside, and in con- 
firmation, and in solemn blessing. Now, then, consider 
what will be the event of this without effect : Can he 
minister the Spirit, from whom the Spirit of God is de- 
parted ?" &c. 

It is hardly necessary to point out the inconsistency of 
such a statement with the doctrine laid down by the 
Church of England in her 26th article, or with all our 
usual notions of the justice and mercy of that God, who 
can never, it may be presumed, allow the devotions of his 
people to be vitiated by offences over which they have no 
control, and for which they have no remedy. 

Of this, Taylor himself seems sensible, when he admits 
that, " without his own fault, no man shall perish ;" that ; 
" He that says amen, if he heartily desire what the other 
perfunctorily and with his lips only utters, not praying 
with his heart and with the acceptabilities of a good life, 
the amen shall be more than all the prayer, and the peo- 
ple shall prevail for themselves when the priest could not." 

The misfortune is, that he speaks of this aid and com- 
fort of the Holy Ghost, which the believing assistant shall 
obtain, notwithstanding the sins of his priest, as something 
" extraordinary" and " irregular ;" as if God, in this case, 
* did his work alone ;" as if the Spirit came " in ways of 
his own, and prevented the external rites and prepossess- 
ed the hearts of his servants," while the people became, 
under such circumstances, their own priests, and got 
"nothing, or but very little, by the ministration of their 
minister ;" or even, as he elsewhere expresses it, " the 
prayers of innocent people, being presented by an ungra- 
cious minister and intercessor, were very much hindered 
in prevailing." 

Now, it is plain that this principle, if carried to its full 
but legitimate extent, would overturn all church govern- 
ment whatever ; since, if the people get " nothing, or but 
very little, from the ministry of the priest," there can be 
no reason for attending on that ministry. Every man who 
found or fancied he found, some human frailty in the " an- 



196 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

gel of his congregation," would be justified in withdraw- 
ing from a place where "his prayers were very much hin- 
dered in prevailing." And if, under such circumstances, 
" themselves also become priests unto God," it is evident 
that their solitary devotions, or devotion offered by them 
in conventicles, would be so far from schismatical, that 
they would be in the likeliest course to be accepted. If 
this had been true, the Israelites would have done well in 
" abhorring the offering of the Lord," when Hophni and 
Phineas ministered at his altar ; which yet, we find, was 
so far from being the case, that it w r as charged as an addi- 
tional sin on these profane sacrificers, that " they made 
the Lord's people to transgress." . " The Scribes and 
Pharisees," said our Lord, " sit in Moses' seat ; whatso- 
ever therefore they say unto you, that do and observe, 
but after their works do ye not." 

The truth is, that Taylor has strangely confounded the 
personal with the official character of the minister ; that 
character by which he is himself to stand or fall, with that 
which he possesses as the appointed instrument of God's 
mercies, and in consequence of the covenant between 
Christ and the whole congregation of the faithful. The 
personal and private prayers of a wicked priest must, cer- 
tainly, fail of their effect, or bring down a curse instead of 
a blessing. But his public and ministerial prayers are not 
his own, but those of the great body of his constituents, 
w r hich he, in their names, and as their organ, offers to 
God ; while, on the other hand, the spiritual graces which 
he conveys the sacrament are not his own, (perhaps he 
may have no share in them,) but the bounty of God, of 
which he is the unworthy channel. 

It is, indeed, most true that the priest is bound to pray 
for the people not only publicly but privately, not only in 
his official but also in his personal capacity. And as, in 
the discharge of his ministerial function, he prays on his 
own behalf as well as theirs, the obligation is most power- 
ful which rests on those of our profession, so to frame our 
lives that our devotion may be acceptable. The fer- 
vent prayer of any righteous man availeth much, and 
the public service of the church may avail the more, 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 197 

when he who pronounces it is one whom the Almighty 
hears with favour. But though the prayers of the whole 
body may gain force, from the intercessions of a holy 
minister, they cannot be supposed to lose their proper ef- 
ficacy, though the congregation should be less fortunate 
in their prolocutor. 

I admit that in all cases where the people are in any 
degree answerable for their minister's guilt, they are like- 
ly to derive no advantage from his ministry. If he has 
departed from the church, and they support him in his 
schism ; if, knowing his life or doctrine to be scandalous, 
they elect him in the first instance as their functionary; or 
if they refuse or neglect to complain of him to those su- 
periors who have power to correct or displace him, the sin 
is theirs as well as his, and they have reason to fear that 
such answers only will be given to their prayers as peti- 
tions usually receive when sent by an obnoxious messen- 
ger. 

But, where the people have no knowledge of the crime, 
or can obtain no redress or abatement of the scandal ; 
when the function is not only public, but recognised by 
God's word and the authority of ecclesiastical superiors, 
that cannot be imputed to them as a fault which is only 
their great misfortune : nor can the mutual communication 
of prayer and grace be impeded by the unworthiness of 
the channel, any more than the bad character of a public 
carrier can vitiate the letters which pass through his hands. 
In the instance already mentioned, Hannah prayed and 
was accepted, though the sacrificers were sons of Belial. 

Nor can it be said with truth that, where no remedy 
is to be had, the people " get nothing, or very little." by 
attendance on the ministry of a wicked person. Through 
his ministry they may, surely, obtain the ordinary means 
of grace, " the sacraments generally necessary to sal- 
vation :" they may offer up the'ir prayers, through his 
ministry, under the circumstances to which a peculiar 
blessing and the especial presence of Christ is promised. 
The very unworthiness of their elder may be improved 
into an opportunity of exercising their faith, their obedi- 
ence, and their charity ; their faith, as relying on God 



198 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

alone for the performance of his gracious promises ; their 
obedience, as complying with the commanded rite under 
discouraging and disgusting circumstances ; their charity ,as 
bearing with their brother's faults, as praying with him, and 
for him. But while such as these may by God's grace, 
reap grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, "they who have 
preached to them" (to use Taylor's ow 7 n words,)"shall have 
the curse of Hananeel and the reward of Balaam, the wa- 
ges of unrighteousness. But thus it was, when the wise 
men asked the doctors where Christ should be born ; they 
told them right, but the wise men went to Christ, and 
found him ; and the doctors sate still and went not." 

The rest of the first discourse, and the whole of the 
second, are unexceptionable in point of theology ; and, in 
piety, learning, eloquence, and good sense, are admirable. 
Nothing can be more awful than the manner in which he 
concludes his first Ser.mon, with a description of the labour, 
the difficulty, the danger, and, on the other hand, the bless- 
edness of the ministerial office; with a warning that many 
things are lawful for the people which are scandalous in 
the clergy, and that the common life of the one must ex- 
ceed the piety of the other. " Remember," he exclaims 
to his clerical hearers ; "Remember your dignity to which 
Christ hath called you !" " Shall such a man as I flee ?" 
said the brave Eleazor, — " shall the stars be darkness, — 
shall the ambassadors of Christ neglect to do their king 
honour, — shall the glory of Christ do dishonourable and 
inglorious actions?" " Ye are the glory of Christ," saith 
St. Paul ; " remember that ! I can say no greater thing ; 
unless possibly this may add some moments for your care 
and caution, that f potentes potenter cruciabuntur !' " 

It was thus that Taylor pressed on the consciences of 
his brethren, " not only to be innocent and void of offence, 
but also to be holy; not only pure, but shining ; not only 
to be blameless, but to be didactic in your lives ; that as, 
by your Sermons, you preach in season, so, by your lives, 
you may preach out of season, that is, at all seasons, and 
to all men, that they, seeing your good works, may glori- 
fy God, on your behalf and on their own !" 

His second SermoR, on the Doctrine of Ministers, may 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 199 

surprise a modern divine by the little remembered names 
of those authors whose commentaries he recommends, and 
whose works are now of no frequent occurrence in any 
but college libraries. There are not many scholars of the 
present day who owe very many or very great obligations 
to "Sixtus Senensis," — to "the excellent book of Hugo 
de Sancto Victore," — to " the Prolegomena of Serarius," 
— "Andreas Hyperius," — or the " Hypotoposes of Mar- 
tinus Cantipratensis." It may excite, also, some surprise 
that no English work is named, and that those of Eras- 
mus, Castellio, Melancthon, and Grotius, are passed over 
in silence. Those will be, however, agreably disappoint- 
ed, who anticipate, from the honour paid to these obsolete 
writers, an obsolete, and, for modern times, an unprofita- 
ble rationale of doctrine. No work that I am acquainted 
with displays more sound and enlarged views of scriptur- 
al interpretation : in none of equal length are so many 
useful hints afforded for the choice of subjects ; — the 
avoiding of useless controversies ; — the inculcation of truth 
in the manner least likely to provoke hostility ; — the de- 
ference to authority which a Christian teacher should al- 
ways display ; — and the avoiding of all such topics as 
"serve a temporal end," or blend " a design of state" 
with religion. 

But for these I must refer my readers to the discourses 
themselves, convinced that I shall be well entitled to their 
thanks, if I have now first introduced them to their notice. 
I have, indeed, been the more exact in noticing their sin- 
gle error, on account of their numerous excellencies, and 
because I was unwilling that a misapprehension of so much 
importance should pass current under the authority of 
such a writer, or that it should derogate from the utility 
of what I conceive to be one of his ablest and most use- 
ful compositions.* 

Of the second class of his writing, namely, the Theo- 
logical, the earliest in date is the Defence of Episcopacy, 
published in 1642, soon after the king's retirement to Ox- 
ford. In gracefulness of diction, in richness of imagery, 

* Note W W. 



200 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

and in that warmth and kindliness of feeling which is in a 
great measure Taylor's peculiar characteristic, it is infe- 
rior, as might well be expected, to such of bis writings as 
relate immediately to morals or devotion. It is also less 
metaphysical, in the highest sense of the term, less dis- 
tinguished by enlarged views of the human mind, smd the 
limits between circumstantials and essentials, than the 
Rule of Conscience or the Liberty of Prophesying. 

But it is, at least, a specimen of manly and moderate 
disputation ; of a variety of learning, such as, even in 
that learned age, few other writers have brought to bear 
upon the same subject ; and of a style vigourous and elastic, 
which, both in taste and energy, leaves far behind it the 
greater number of contemporary theologians, and only- 
falls short of that which few, indeed, have equalled, the 
sutstained and majestic harmony of Hooker's Ecclesiasti- 
cal Polity. 

Of the arguments, however, which he has advanced 
in favour of an institution which, through life, he regarded 
with more than common veneration, there are not many 
which strike me as new ; and, in the few particulars where 
he has taken a different ground from that generally occu- 
pied by the assertors of episcopal government, I am not 
sure that he has been fortunate. 

He sets out with asserting the absolute necessity that 
some form of church government should be found laid 
down in Scripture ; an assertion of precisely the same 
kind with that which was maintained by the Puritans in 
the reign of Elizabeth, and which was so ably refuted by 
Hooker in the third book of his immortal work already- 
referred to. The reasons, indeed, on which Taylor rests 
his position are as unsound as the position itself is, prima 
facie, questionable. " If," he urges, " for our private 
actions and duties ceconomical, they will pretend a text, 
I suppose it will not be thought possible Scripture should 
make default in assignation of the public government, in- 
somuch as all laws intend the public and the general di- 
rectly, the private and the particular by consequence only 
and comprehension within the general." 

But this argument, if it proves any thing, will prove 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 201 

too much, and will send us to our Bibles for the model 
not only of ecclesiastical but civil regimen ; inasmuch as 
the cases are both the same, and, in both, the presump- 
tion, if there were any, would be equal, that the general 
good should be provided for before the individual. We 
find, however in fact, that, while the duties of individuals 
are marked out, in both the Old and New Testament, in 
the broadest characters and with the most scrupulous care, 
those individuals are left entirely to themselves and the 
decision of their own reason as to the manner in which they 
are to unite into nations or clans for mutual protection, 
and as to the persons and powers of those public func- 
tionaries whom they are to appoint as guardians of the 
general happiness and deciders of private differences. 
The truth is, that, how T ever we may deceive ourselves 
with the term of imaginary public, whom we dress up in 
the attributes of a real personage, and to whom we ascribe, 
in common speech, an existence and an interest distinct 
from those individuals of whom it is, in fact, only the col- 
lective name, no wise lawgiver will attempt to sep- 
arate public from private happiness and virtue, or ex- 
pect to obtain an aggregate of prosperity any otherwise 
than by consulting the prosperity of those individuals of 
whom that aggregate is made up. The moral laws, ac- 
cordingly, (to which Taylor would hardly have denied a 
precedence over all other institutions,) not incidentally or 
mediately, but in the first instance, respect the conduct of 
individuals. And as all other laws, whether relating to 
forms of government or the internal regulations of society, 
are, in fact, modal and instrumental only, in order to the 
due discharge and observance of these higher and more 
holy obligations it is reasonable that God, having taught 
us these last, should leave us, as, in nine instances out of 
ten, he has confessedly left us, to pursue, by such means 
as our human experience and natural faculties point out, 
the ends which his revelation has set before us. 

But Taylor goes on to urge that " if Christ himself 

did not take order for a government, that we must derive 

it from human prudence and emergency of conveniences, 

and concourse of new circumstances, and then the gov- 

18 



202 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

eminent must often be changed, or else time must stand 
still, and things be ever in the same state and possibility. 
Both the consequents," he tells us, " are extremely full 
of inconvenience. For, if it be left to human prudence, 
then either government of the church is not in immediate 
order to the good and benison of souls ; or, if it be that 
such an institution, in such immediate order to eternity, 
should be dependant upon human prudence, it were to 
trust such a rich commodity in a cock-boat, that no wise 
pilot would be supposed to do. But, if there be often 
changes in government ecclesiastical, (which was the other 
consequent,) in the public frame, I mean, and constitution 
of it ; either the certain infinity of schisms will arise, or 
the dangerous issues of public inconsistence and innovation, 
which, in matters of religion is good for nothing but to 
make men distrust all ; and, come the best that can come, 
there will be so many church governments as there are 
human prudences." 

In the first of these supposed consequences, Taylor 
assumes that " the government of the church is in imme- 
diate order to the good and benison of souls." But this 
is plainly untrue, since for this great end nothing more is 
immediately necessary (speaking always in subordination 
to the merits and sacrifice of Christ,) but the sincere 
word of God, as delivered in Scripture, to enlighten and 
establish our faith and the means of grace, which are af- 
forded us in baptism and the Lord's supper. The 
government of the church is in immediate order to the faith- 
ful preaching of the truth and the decent and orderly 
ministration of the sacraments, but it is only through their 
means, and as a consequence of them, that it seeks the 
salvation of souls. It must rank, therefore, as Hooker 
wisely teaches, not among the points essential to salvation, 
but " those things that are accessary hereunto, those things 
that so belong to the way of salvation, as to alter them, 
is no otherwise to change that way than a path is changed 
by altering only the uppermost face thereof, which, be it 
laid with gravel, or set with gravel, or set with grass, or 
paved with stones, remaineth still the same path." 

To his observations respecting the danger of frequent 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 203 

changes or schisms, or both, it may be answered, that the 
risk of these in religious affairs is not greater than of mu- 
tability or rebellion in civil ; and that for both these, (even 
supposing us left to human prudence and experience as 
our only guides in framing our polity,) our natural caution 
and our natural respect for authority are, as well as our 
Christian prudence and Christian charity, the proper and 
efficacious remedy. In the eagerness, indeed, of his ar- 
gument, he does not stop with the enumeration of these 
probable inconveniences of the supposition which he 
deprecates, but pursues his consequence to an extent 
which would be subversive of all principles of human 
government, and leave no adequate means to preserve the 
peace of the world but a necessary tyranny or a direct 
theocracy. " If," he urges, " there be no opinion of 
religion, no derivation from a divine authority, there will be 
sure to be no obedience, and, indeed, nothing but a cer- 
tain public, calamitous irregularity. For why should they 
obey ? Not for conscience, for there is no derivation from 
divine authority. Not for fear, for they have not the 
power of the sword." Surely, when Taylor wrote thus, 
he had forgotten the apostolical precept, " Submit your- 
selves unto every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake." 

Though Christ, therefore, were admitted to have left no 
definite law for the manner in which his church was to be 
governed, and though episcopacy were allowed to stand 
on the single basis of human institution, there would be 
still abundant reason againt hasty or needless change of 
such an institution on the part of sovereigns, as well as 
against schism in particular persons, on account, and from 
a church which exacted no unchristian terms of commun- 
ion. But, it is certain that any positive institution of 
Christ, if really traced to him, is obligatory on the con- 
science of Christians ; and, if Taylor had made good his 
second position, that our Lord, while on earth, appointed 
the two distinct offices of bishop and presbyter, no doubt 
could remain but that both of these would rest on the same 
foundation with that of those sacraments themselves, 
which all men allow to be immutable. 

But here, too, the author, while attempting to prove 



204 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

too much, has assumed facts in which he is neither borne 
out by antiquity, nor the tenor of the gospel history, when 
he finds in the apostles, during the abode of their Lord on 
earth, the first bishops and in the seventy-two disciples 
whom Christ also selected from his followers, the first 
presbyters of his church. 

That the latter were appointed by Christ to any thing 
more than a temporary and occasional function, is doubt- 
ed by a writer not inferior to Taylor either in judgment or 
learning, — and inferior to none in his ardent devotion to 
the primitive institution of episcopacy,- — the wise and ex- 
cellent Hammond. That the office which they filled, 
even supposing it to be permanent, answered to the pres- 
byterate, is opposed by the tradition of the church, pre- 
served by Epiphanius, (and which Taylor unsuccessfully 
endeavours to reconcile with his own opinion,) that from 
their number the seven Deacons (or some of them at 
least,) were afterwards selected. And it is opposed, above 
all, by the fact, that if the seventy had been made pres- 
byters by Christ, they would have been the equals, at 
least, if not the superiors, of the apostles themselves ; 
whose priesthood, probably, and certainly their episcopa- 
cy, dates only from the time when their Divine Master 
sent them forth, with the Holy Ghost for their seal, from 
Mount Olivet, after his resurrection. 

That the apostles, thus left in charge of the faithful, 
thus commissioned by Christ, and thus guided by the 
Paraclete, delegated to three different orders of men, dis- 
tinct and different portions of the authority which they 
had themselves received ; that they ordained in different 
parts of the world apostles or bishops like themselves; el- 
ders to act in subserviency to those bishops, and deacons 
to assist those elders, — the author, in what follows, has, 
indeed, satisfactorily established. And it is plain, that 
not only is the fact that episcopacy was instituted by the 
followers of Christ and the possessors of the Holy Spirit, 
sufficient to prove it neither an irrational nor unchristian 
form of polity, but that a very great and evident necessi- 
ty must be shown, before any human hand can be au- 
thorized to pull down or alter a fabric erected under such 
auspices. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 205 

This, and this only, is the strong, and, if I may be al- 
lowed the expression, the impregnable ground of the epis- 
copal scheme, and of Taylor's defence of it. It is not as 
thinking lightly of the advantages of that scheme, nor as 
underrating its real authority ; far less is it as desiring to 
detract from the reputation of an author, whom none can 
read without delight and improvement, that I have ven- 
tured these few remarks on arguments to which he him- 
self has appeared to ascribe an undue degree of value. 
But I have done it to prevent other champions in the 
same good cause from being induced to commit the same er- 
ror,and to show how needless it is to have recourse to doubt- 
ful or inapplicable proofs and presumptions, when, in an 
universal and apostolical tradition, every proof is contain- 
ed, which can be, in such a case, desired or expected. — 
And, though 1 am far from confounding the relative value 
of institutions immediately authorized by Christ, immedi- 
ately tending to the salvation of souls, or of visible and 
universal advantage to them, with those which chiefly re- 
spect ecclesiastical order, — it can hardly, I think, be de- 
nied that those churches are wisest who retain episcopacy ; 
those sectaries least excusable who dissent from it ; and 
that the authority of apostolical tradition cannot be reas- 
onably rejected in this case, without endangering many 
other observances of Christianity, which are almost uni- 
versally accounted essentials. — With some qualification as 
to the case of infant baptism, in favour of which there is 
something very like a positive command of Christ, and 
respecting the Scripture proofs of which Taylor himself 
afterwards thought more reverently, the passage which 
follows, is well worthy the serious consideration of all who 
thoughtlessly or conscientiously impugn episcopacy. 

"The sum is this. Although we had not proved the 
immediate divine institution of episcopal power over pres- 
byters, and the whole flock, yet episcopacy is not less 
than an apostolical ordinance, and delivered to us by the 
same authority that the observation of the Lord's day is. 
For, for that in the New Testament we have no precept, 
and nothing but the example of the primitive disciples 
18* 



206 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

meeting in their synaxes upon that day, (and so also they 
did on the Saturday in the Jewish synagogues,) but yet 
(however, that at Geneva, they were once in meditation 
to have changed it into a Thursday meeting, to have 
shown their Christian liberty,) we should think strangely 
of those men that called the Sunday festival less than an 
apostolical ordinance, and necessary now to be kept holy 
with such observances as the church hath appointed. 

" Baptism of infants is most certainly a holy and char- 
itable ordinance, and of ordinary necessity to all that 
ever cried, and yet the church hath founded this rite upon 
the tradition of the apostles ; and wise men do easily 
observe, that the Anabaptist can, by the same probability 
of Scripture, enforce a necessity of communicating infants 
upon us, as we do of baptising infants upon them, if we 
speak of immediate divine institution, or of practice apos- 
tolical recorded in Scripture ; and, therefore, a great mas- 
ter of Geneva, in a book he writ against the Anabaptists, 
was forced to fly to apostolical traditive ordination. And 
therefore the institution of bishops must be served first, 
as having fairer plea and clearer evidence in Scripture, 
than the baptising of infants ; and yet, they that deny this, 
are, by the just anathema of the catholic church, confi- 
dently condemned for heretics. 

"Of the same consideration are divers other things in 
Christianity, as the presbyter's consecrating the eucharist : 
for if the apostles in the first institution did represent 
the whole church, clergy and laity, when Christ, ' Hoc 
facite,' — 'do this, 5 then why may not every Christian 
man there represented, do that which the apostles in the 
name of all were commanded to do ? — If the apostles did 
not represent the whole church, why then do all commu- 
nicate? — Or, what place or intimation of Christ's saying 
is there, in all the four gospels, limiting ' hoc fa-cite* id 
est, benedicite,' to the clergy, and extending c hocfacite,' 
id est, ' accipite et manducatej to the laity ? This also 
rests upon the practice apostolical and traditive interpre- 
tation of holy church, and yet cannot be denied that so it 
ought to be, of any man that would not have his Christ- 
endom suspected. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 207 

" To these I add the communion of women ; the distinc- 
tion of books apocryphal from canonical ; that such books 
were written by such evangelists and apostles ; the whole 
tradition of Scripture itself; the apostle' creed; the feast 
of Easter (which, amongst all them that cry up the Sunday 
festival for a divne institution, must needs prevail as caput 
institutionis , it being that for which the Sunday is commem- 
orated). These, and divers others of greater consequence 
(which I dare not specify for fear of being misunderstood,) 
rely but upon equal faith with this of episcopacy (though 
I should waive all the arguments for immediate divine or- 
dinance ;) and therefore it is but reasonable it should be 
ranked among the credenda of Christianity, which the 
church hath entertained, on the confidence of that which 
we call the faith of a Christian, whose master is truth 
itself." 

On the remainder of Taylor's argument, a very few ob- 
servations are sufficient. — -He obviates with much skill 
and learning, in his twenty-first section, the objection 
against the sole jurisdiction of the bishop, which is taken 
from an expression of Jerome, and discriminates between 
the separate functions and dignities of bishops and presby- 
ters, whether these last are spoken of singly, or as assem- 
bled in diocesan councils. He solves that which is some- 
times urged, from the indiscriminate manner in which, in 
the earliest times, the terms bishop and presbyter were 
sometimes applied, and defines the power and dignity of 
the ancient officer who was called " Chorepiscopus." — 
He then enlarges on the authority, influence, and honour, 
possessed by bishops in elder times ; on the extent of 
their dioceses, and the allegiance paid them by their cler- 
gy, and concludes with proving, against the Church Poli- 
ty of Calvin, that at no period of antiquity did laymen 
hold office in the church. 

On the general style and spirit of this treatise I have 
already spoken, and the specimen which I have given 
may afford the reader a sufficient idea of both. The care 
is, however, worthy of notice, with which Taylor had al- 
ready begun to guard against any thing which might sanc- 
tion persecution, and which has led him, in two different 



208 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

places of his present work, to deny to the church the right 
of employing any but ecclesiastical censures. This deni- 
al is, as we have seen, employed by him as an argument 
for the necessity of an immediate divine commission to 
the episcopacy, and he expresses himself still more strong- 
ly in sect. 35. 

" As no human power can disrobe the church of the 
power of excommunication, so no human power can in- 
vest the church with a lay compulsory. For, if the church 
be not capable of a 'jus gladii,' as most certainly she is 
not, the church cannot receive power to put men to death, 
or to inflict lesser pains in order to it, or any thing above 

a salutary penance ." " Her censure she may inflict 

upon her delinquent children without asking leave. Christ 
is her avdevTia for that ; he is her warrant and security. 
The other [the power of secular punishment] is begged 
or borrowed, none of her own, nor a Jit edge to be used 
in her abscisions and coercions" 

The " Defence of Episcopacy" was followed by his 
" Apology for authorized and set Forms of Liturgy," 
which first appeared in 1646, though it was enlarged in a 
second edition three years afterwards. It is a sufficient 
proof that he was no time-server, when a work of this 
kind appeared with his name, and with a reprint of his 
dedication to the king, at a time when that sovereign was 
already removed to another state of existence. 

The work, thus enlarged and improved, is perhaps, 
among the best of Taylor's polemical discourses. It was 
a subject which gave abundant scope to his extensive 
knowledge of antiquity and of human nature, and it was 
one above all, which, from its connexion with practical 
piety, was adapted to call into action much of that higher 
strain of eloquence by which his practical works are more 
peculiarly distinguished. On prayer, indeed, he always 
seems to have felt and written " with all his heart, with 
all his soul, and with all his strength ;" and it is a subject, 
therefore, on which, of all others, his opinion is most val- 
uable. The most strenuous admirers of extemporaneous 
prayer can hardly refuse their serious attention to the ob- 
jections offered against its practice by one who was him- 






LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 209 

self endued with so remarkable gifts both of eloquence and 
piety. And those whom his arguments fail to convince, 
or who need no arguments to convince them, will not the 
less be impressed by the majestic eloquence of his pre- 
face, in which he laments over the then persecuted con- 
dition of the English church, and concisely, but with a 
degree of clearness and elegance which has been seldom 
surpassed, reviews and regrets the merits of the proscrib- 
ed liturgy. 

"In these things," he says, when comparing the calam- 
ities of England to those of Israel, in the days of Hophni 
and Phineas ; " in these things we also have been but too 
like the sons of Israel ; for, when we sinned as greatly, 
we also have groaned under as great and sad a calamity. 
For we have not only felt the evils of an intestine war, 
but God hath smitten us in our spirit, and laid the scene 
of his judgments especially in religion; he hath snuffed 
our lamp so near that it is almost extinguished, and the 
sacred fire was put into a hole in the earth, even then 
when we were forced to light those tapers that stood upon 
our altars, that, by this sad truth better than by the old 
ceremony, we might prove our succession to those holy 
men, who w 7 ere constrained to sing hymns to Christ in 
dark places and retirements." 

" But 1 delight not to observe the correspondences of 
such sad accidents, which, as they may happen upon di- 
verse causes, or may be forced violently by the strength 
of fancy, or driven on by jealousy, and the too fond open- 
ings of troubled hearts and afflicted spirits ; so they do 
but help to vex the offending part, and relieve the afflict- 
ed but with a fantastic and groundless comfort. I will, 
therefore, deny leave to my own affections to ease them- 
selves by complaining of others. I shall only crave leave 
that I may remember Jerusalem, and call to mind the 
pleasures of the temple, the order of her services, the 
beauty of her buildings, the sweetness of her songs, the 
decency of her ministrations, the assiduity and economy 
of her priests and Levites, the daily sacrifice, and eternal 
fire of devotion that went not out by day nor night : these 
were the pleasures of our peace, and there is a remanent 



210 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

felicity in the very memory of those spiritual delights 
which we then enjoyed as antepasts of heaven, and con- 
signations to immortality of joys. And it may be so again 
when it shall please God, who hath the hearts of all 
princes in his hands, and turneth them as the rivers of 
waters ; and when men will consider the invaluable loss 
that is appendant to the destroying such forms of discipline 
and devotion in which God was purely worshipped, and 
the church was edified, and the people instructed to great 
degrees of piety, knowledge, and devotion." — " For to 
the churches of the Roman communion we can say, that 
ours is reformed ; to the reformed churches we can say, 
that ours is orderly and decent : for we are freed from the 
impositions and lasting errors of a tyrannical spirit, and 
yet from the extravagancies of a popular spirit too : our 
reformation was done without tumult, and yet we saw it 
necessary to reform ; we were zealous to cast away the 
old errors, but our zeal was balanced with consideration 
and the results of authority. Not like women and chil- 
dren when they are affrighted with fire in their clothes ; 
we shake off the coal indeed, but not our garments, lest 
we should have exposed our churches to that nakedness 
which the excellent men of our sister churches complain- 
ed to be among themselves." 

The advantages of set forms of prayer in general ; the 
peculiar merits of the English liturgy ; the weakness of 
the objections urged against its different particulars ; the 
testimony borne to its merits by the most celebrated among 
the martyrs of the reformation, (among whom he instan- 
ces, with peculiar respect, the name of his own ancestor, 
Rowland Taylor,) contrasted with the obvious imperfec- 
tions and arrogant claims of the recent " Directory," are, 
all in their turns, concisely and eloquently treated ; till 
he returns again to the excellence and misfortunes of the 
Common Prayer. 

" And yet this excellent book hath had the fate to be 
cut in pieces with a pen-knife, and thrown into the fire ; 
but it is not consumed. At first, it was sown in tears, 
and is now watered with tears, yet never was any holy 
thing drowned and extinguished by tears. It began with 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 211 

the martyrdom of the compilers, and the church hath 
been vexed ever since by angry spirits, and she was forc- 
ed to defend it with much trouble and unquietness ; but 
it is to be hoped, that all these storms are sent but to in- 
crease the zeal and confidence of the pious sons of the 
church of England. Indeed, the greatest danger that the 
Prayer-Book ever had,was the indifFerency and indevotion 
of them that used it but as a common blessing ; and they 
who thought it fit for the meanest of the clergy to read 
prayers, and for themselves only to preach, though they 
might innocently intend it, yet did not in that action con- 
sult the honour of our liturgy, except where charity or 
necessity did interpose. But, when excellent things go 
away, then look back upon us, as our blessed Savour did 
upon St. Peter, we are more moved than by the nearer 
embraces of a full and actual possession. I pray God it 
may prove so in our case, and that we may not be too 
willing to be discouraged ; at least, that we may not cease 
to love and to desire what is not publicly permitted to 
our practice and profession." 

In this fine preface there is one passage which I could 
wish had been differently worded. In commending, with 
good reason, the manner in which different passages from 
the Epistles and Gospels are selected to be read in the 
Communion Service, he thus expresses himself: — 

" If we deny to the people a liberty of reading Scrip- 
tures, may they not complain, as Isaac did against the in- 
habitants of the land, that the Philistines had spoiled his 
well, and the fountains of living water ? If a free use to 
all of them, and of all Scriptures, were permitted, should 
not the church herself have more cause to complain of the 
infinite licentiousness and looseness of interpretations, and 
of the commencement of ten thousand errors, which 
would certainly be consequent to such permission ? Rea- 
son and religion will chide us in the first, reason and ex- 
perience in the latter. And can the wit of man conceive 
a better temper and expedient than that such Scriptures 
only, or principally, should be laid before them all in daily 
offices, which contain in them all the mysteries of 
our redemption, and all the rules of good life ?" 



212 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

"And were this design made something more minute, 
and applicable to the various necessities of the times, 
and such choice Scriptures permitted indifferently, which 
might be matter of necessity and great edification, the 
pepple of the church would have no reason to complain 
that the fountains of our Saviour were stopped from them, 
nor the rulers of the church, that the mysteriousness of 
Scripture were abused by the petulancy of the people, 
to consequents harsh, impious, and unreasonable, in despite 
of government, in exauctoration of the power of superi- 
ors, or for the commencement of schisms and heresies." 
If in these words, he means no more than to propose 
that, for the occasions of the public service of the church, 
and instead of the now almost continuous order in which 
the Bible is read in our congregations on week-days, a se- 
lection were made after the manner of the ancient lection- 
aries,leaving the entire Bible as free as before to t he private 
studies of all Christians, — I do not know that the measure 
which he recommends would be liable to any serious ob- 
jections. It has been already adopted, to a certain extent, 
by the church, in her selection of the proper lessons for 
Sundays and saints' days throughout the year; and, even 
in the regular course of the daily chapters, it is well known 
that the principle, at least, is admitted by the exclusion 
of some particular passages. But it is not easy to see how 
a choice of Scriptures for public reading could prevent 
those which were read in private from being abused in the 
manner which he deplores; and, if it were his design to 
permit the Scriptures to the laity only in such an abridg- 
ed and garbled form as their spiritual rulers might think 
advisable, it could only remain for us to regret, that the 
danger of the times, and the bitter fruits of enthusiasm and 
fanatacism then before his eyes, had so far overpowered 
the better feeling of a man like Taylor, as that they should 
betray him into a proposal at once so foolish and so blam- 
able, so contrary to the maxims of an enlarged worldly 
prudence, and so dangerous to genuine Christianity. The 
strangest circumstance of the whole, and that which in- 
duces me still more to think that the author has here spok- 
en inconsiderately, is that, a few sections further on, he 



LITE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 213 

expresses an opinion directly contrary to that which he 
has here advanced, and praises the church of England, in 
the highest terms, for her orderly, and (with few excep- 
tions) her indiscriminate reading of the Old and New 
Testament. " Certainly/' are his words, " it was a very 
great wisdom, and a very prudent and religious constitu- 
tion, so to order that part of the liturgy which the ancients 
called the 6 Lectionarium/that the Psalter should be read 
over twelve times in the year, the Old Testament once, 
and the New Testament thrice, besides the Epistles and 
Gospels, which renew, with a more frequent repetition 
such choice places as represent the entire body of faith 
and good life. There is a defalcation of some few chap- 
ters from the entire body in the order ; but that also was 
part of the wisdom of the church, and not to expose to 
public ears and common judgment some of the secret 
rites of Moses's law, or the more mysterious prophesies 
of the New Testament, whose sense and meaning the 
event will declare, if we, by mistaken and anticipated 
interpretations, do not obstruct our own capacities, and 
hinder us from believeing the true events, because they 
answer not those expectations with which our own mis- 
takes have prepared our understandings. 5 ' 

The treatise itself is occupied in discussing the argu- 
ments usually advanced either by those who object to all 
set and premeditated forms whatever, or by those who 
admit of a premeditated form, so it be not enjoined by 
authority, but every minister of the Gospel be left to the 
best use of those gifts of prayer which he posesses. 
Against the first of these he urges the counsel of Solo- 
mon, " Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart 
be hasty to utter any thing before God," demanding — 
" who keeps the precepts best, he that deliberates or he 
that considers not when he speaks ?" — He proceeds to 
instance, to the same, effect, the example and authority 
of the wisest nations and most sober persons of antiquity : 
and examines, with much learning and acuteness, the pre- 
tence of a promise in the Gospel of a spirit of prayer, 
and of a peculiar assistance to our unpremeditated devo- 
tions. What he here lays down as to the nature of the 
19 



214 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D, 

ordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, and those celestial aids 
which are purchased for us by Christ's blood, is extremely 
useful and important, inasmuch as he proves " that the 
aids of the Holy Ghost are only assistances to us in the 
use of natural means," and that " labour, and hard study 
and premeditation, will soonest purchase the gift of pray- 
er, and ascertain us of the assistance of the Spirit." He 
shows that, even where the extraordinary aids of the Holy 
Ghost were most largely given in the case of the inspired 
writers of the New r Testament, " yet, in the midst of those 
great assistances and motions, they did use study, art, in- 
dustry and human abilities." 

" This," he proceeds, " is more than probable in the 
different styles of the several books ; some being of admi- 
rable art, others lower and plain. The words were their 
own, at least sometimes, not the Holy Ghost's. And, if 
Origen, St. Hierome, and especially the Greek fathers, 
scholiasts and grammarians, were not deceived by false 
copies, but that they truly did observe sometimes, to be 
impropriety of an expression in the language, sometimes 
not true Greek, who will think those errors or imperfec- 
tions in grammar were, (in respect of the words, I say,) 
precisely immediate inspirations and dictates of the Holy 
Ghost, and not rather their own productions of industry 
and humanity ?" 

" But, clearly, some of their words were the words 
of Aratus, some of Epimenides, some of Menander, some 
of St. Paul, [This speak J, not the Lord.]" — " And, 
since that we cannot pretend on any grounds of proba- 
bility to an inspiration so immediate as theirs, and yet 
their assistances, which they had from the Spirit, did not 
exclude human arts and industry, but that the ablest 
scholar did write the best, much rather is this true in the 
gifts and assistances we receive, and particulary in the 
gift of prayer. It is not an extempore and an inspired 
faculty ; but the faculites of nature, and the abilities of 
art and industry, are improved and ennobled by the super- 
vening assistance of the Holy Spirit. And, if those 
who pray extempore, say, that the assistance they receive 
from the Spirit is the inspiration of words and powers. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 215 

without the operation of art and natural abilities, and 
human industry ; then, besides that, it is more than the 
penman of Scripture some times had, (because they need- 
ed no extraordinary assistances to what they could of 
themselves do upon the stock of other abilities). Be- 
sides this, I say it must follow that such prayers, so in- 
spired, if they were committed to writing, would form as 
good canonical Scripture as any is in St. Paul's Epistles : 
the impudence of which pretension is sufficient to prove 
the extreme vanity of the challenge." 

"But," (he goes on to argue,) having thus shown that 
the gift of praying by the Spirit, whatever it means, may, 
like all other spiritual gifts, be acquired by human indus- 
try, — " Let us take a man that pretends he hath the gift 
of prayer, and loves to pray extempore. I suppose his 
thoughts go a little before his tongue. I demand, then, 
whether cannot this man, when it is once come into his 
head, hold his tongue, and write down what he hath con- 
ceived? If his first conceptions were of God and God's 
Spirit, then they are so still, even when they are written. 
Or, is the Spirit departed from him at the sight of a pen 
and inkhorn ? It did use to be otherwise among the old 
and new prophets, whether they were prophets of pre- 
diction or of ordinary ministry. But, if his conception 
may be written, and, being thus written, is still a produc- 
tion of the Spirit, then it follows that set forms of pray- 
er, deliberate and prescribed, may as w r ell be a praying 
with the Spirit as sudden forms and extempore outlets." 
— " So that, in effect, since, after the pretended assistance 
of the Spirit in our prayers, we may write them down, 
consider them, try the Spirits, and ponder the matter, 
the reason, and the religion of the address ; let the 
world judge whether this sudden utterence and ex- 
tempore forms be any thing else but a direct resolution 
not to consider beforehand what we speak." 

He then examines, with the same clear-sighted discri- 
mination, the different meanings in which we may under- 
stand the scriptural expression of " praying by the Spir- 
it ;" which he defines to be, " first, when the Spirit stirs 
up our desires to pray, per motionem actualis auxilii ; or 



216 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

secondly, when the Spirit teaches us what or how to pray 
telling us the matter and manner of our prayers ; thirdly, 
and lastly, dictating the very words of our prayers. 
There is no other way in the world to pray with the 
Spirit that is pertinent to this question ; and of this last 
manner the Scripture determines nothing, nor speaks any 
thing expressly of it. And yet, suppose it had, we are 
certain the Holy Ghost hath supplied us with all these, 
and yet in set forms of prayer best of all ; I mean, where 
a difference can be. 

"For, first: As for the desires and actual motions or 
incitements to pray, they are indifferent to one or the oth- 
er, to set form or extempore. 

" Secondly : But as to the matter or manner of prayer, 
it is clearly contained in the expresses and set forms of 
Scripture ; and there it is supplied to us by the Spirit, for 
he is the great dictator of it. 

" Thirdly : Now, then, for the very words. No man 
can assure me that the words of his extempore prayer are 
the words of the Holy Spirit. It is neither reason nor 
modesty to expect such immediate assistances to so little 
purpose, he having supplied us with abilities more than 
enough to express our desires, aliunde, otherwise than by 
immediate dictate. But, if we will take David's Psalter, 
or the other hymns of Holy Scripture, or any of the 
prayers which are respersed over the Bible, we are sure 
enough that they are the words of God's Spirit, mediate- 
ly or immediately, by way of infusion or ecstacy, by vis- 
ion, or, at least, by ordiniary assistance. And now then, 
what greater confidence can any man have for the excel- 
lency of his prayers, and the probability of their being ac- 
ceepted, than when he prays his Psalter, or the Lord's 
Prayer, or any other office which he finds consigned in 
Scripture ? When God's Spirit stirs us up to an actual 
devotion, and then we use the matter he hath described 
and taught, and the very words which Christ, and 
Christ's Spirit, and the apostles and other persons full of 
the Holy Ghost did use ; if, in the world, there be any 
praying with the Spirit, (I mean, in vocal prayer,) this 
is it." 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 217 

In replying to the second objection, which admits ot 
premeditation, but attacks the restriction of all men to a 
single form, he admits, in the first place, that "the gift or 
ability of prayer given to the church is used either in 
public or private, and that which is fit enough for one is 
inconvenient in the other ; and, although a liberty in pri- 
vate may be for edification of good pepole, when it is pi- 
ously and discreetly used, yet, in the public, if it were 
indifferently permitted, it would bring infinite inconveni- 
ence, and become intolerable." Then, after some inter- 
mediate observations, evincing a profound acquaintance 
with the human heart, and a large personal experience 
of those seraphic ardours of devotion which, in private, 
" may descend, like an anointing from above, and which 
are not to be restrained within the margent of prescribed 
forms," he urges that such a spirit may nevertheless keep 
silence in the church, and speak unto himself and unto 
God;" and that, " though public forms cannot be fitted 
to every man's fancy and affections," — " yet they may 
be fitted to all necessities, and to every man's duty." 
That, even if every minister were permitted to pray his 
own forms, his form could not comply with the great va- 
riety of affections which are amongst his auditors : though 
it might hit casually, and by accident be commensurate 
to the present fancy of some of his congregation, with 
which, at that time, possibly the public form would not. 
" This may be thus, and it may be otherwise ; and, at 
the same time in which some feel a greater gust and rel- 
ish in his prayer, others might feel a greater sweetness in 
recitation of the public form. This thing is so by chance, 
so singular and uncertaian, that no wise man, nor no prov- 
idence less than Divine, can make any provision for it." 

After all, he urges, it is nothing but the fantastic and 
the imaginative part that is pleased : and when men, out 
of fancy , prejudice, or passion, are not edified by that 
which, in itself, is good, wholesome, and apt to edefy, 
more particularly when this prepared by those men who, 
in all reason, are to be supposed to have received from 
God all those assistances which are effects of the " spirit of 

19* 



218 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

government/' — "the way to cure the inconvenience is to 
alter the men, not to change the institution." 

Having thus cleared up the question of edification, he 
proceeds to discuss the points of right authority. He 
shows, that the power of appointing certain forms of prayer 
is, by a necessary analogy, to reside in the rulers of the 
church ; both as stewards of sacred things, and as, like 
the old prophets, bound to pray for the people, and to 
provide that so solemn a duty as public prayer be perform- 
ed without disorder or scandal. 

And, as the Presbyterians were agreed with him, that 
the ministers, and not the people, were to prescribe the 
words of the prayer in which all should join, he goes on 
to urge, that the church, in general, might more fitly ex- 
ecute this office for all, than every single minister for his 
congregation: inasmuch as, whatever promises of spiritual 
assistance are made to individual believers, are more fully 
and definitely accorded to the church at large ; and, since 
the church at large, in her collective and corporate capac- 
ity, can only exercise whatever spirit of prayer she may 
possess in limited and determined forms, no private minis- 
ter can expect to pray better than a council ; few are so 
confident themselves as to say, that they can do it as well ; 
and " quod spectat ad omnes, ab omnibus tractari debet." 

He proceeds to show, by the precedents of all former, 
the form of benediction prescribed by God to Moses ; the 
psalms employed in the service of the Temple ; the ex- 
ample of John the Baptist, and of Christ himself, that 
some set forms of prayer were of inspired and Divine au- 
thority. He proves the injunction of Christ to extend to 
the form of words as well as to the purport of the petitions ; 
and observes, that if ever any prayer was, or could be, a 
part of that doctrine of faith by which we received the 
Spirit, it must needs be this prayer, which was the only 
form our blessed Master taught the Christian church." 

The practice of the ancient church, both in prayers 
and hymns, restricting both to set forms, and permitting 
such forms only to be introduced by persons in authority, 
he next establishes and comments on. He instances some 
of the advantages of a well-constructed liturgy, in con- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR D.D. 219 

veying truths to the heart as well as to the understanding 
of the assistants ; in preserving concord and catholic com- 
munion ; and in restraining the conceit and curiosity of in- 
dividual ministers of religion, whose devotion may be 
spoiled by the same applauses which encourage and aug- 
ment their fluency. " But these things," he observes 
with characteristic moderation and gentleness, " are acci- 
dental to the nature of the thing : and therefore, though 
they are certainly consequent to the person, yet I will not 
be too severe, but preserve myself on the surer side of a 
charitable construction; which, truly, I desire to keep 
not only to their persons, whom I much reverence, but 
also to their actions. But yet I durst not do the same 
thing even for these last reasons, though I had no other." 

The objection, that individual ministers may as well be 
left to the composition of their own prayers as their own 
sermons, he answers by pointing out the many points of 
difference which exist between the two things ; the great- 
er necessity that the people should agree with what they 
join in than what they hear; the greater reverence requir- 
ed in an immediate address to the Most High ; the great- 
er variety and latitude in a theological argument than in 
a prayer ; and the fact, that many persons preach, whom, 
even in the opinion of the divines of Westminster them- 
selves, it might be as well to restrain from that liberty. 

The following passage may lead us to suspect that the 
Presbyterian clergy of those days had not yet usually be- 
gun the practice, which is now almost universal amongst 
them, of preaching extempore, or what passes as such. 
" Yet, methinks, the argument objected, so far as the ex- 
tempore men make use of it, if it were turned with the 
edge the other way, would have more reason in it ; and, 
instead of arguing, c Why should not the same liberty be 
allowed to their spirit in praying as in preaching V it were 
better to substitute this ; < If they can pray with the Spir- 
it, why do they not also preach with the Spirit?'" — 
" Let them make demonstration of their spirit by making 
excellent sermons extempore : that it may become an ex- 
periment of their other faculty, that, after they are tried 
and approved in this, they may be considered for theoth- 



220 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D . D. 

er: and, if praying with the Spirit be praying extem- 
pore, why shall they not preach extempore too, or else 
confess they preach without the Spirit, or that they have 
not the gift of preaching ?" 

He concludes by observing, that there is no promise in 
Scripture, that he who prays extempore shall be heard 
the better, or assisted at all to such purposes ; that this 
way of prayer is without precedent in antiquity or warrant 
in Scripture ; that it is unreasonable, because without de- 
liberation ; innovating, because without authority : de- 
tracting from our first reformers, and encouraging to the 
cavils of the Church of Rome; favourable to the intro- 
duction of heresy, and dangerous to the right administra- 
tion of the sacraments themselves. "He," he proceeds, 
e c that considers all these things, (and many more he may 
consider,) will find that particular men are not fit to be in- 
trusted to offer in public, with their private spirit, to God, 
for the people, in such solemnities, in matters of so great 
concernment ; where the honour of God, the benefit of 
the people, the interest of kingdoms, the being of a church, 
the unity of minds, the conformity of practice, the truth 
of persuasion, and the salvation of souls, are so much con- 
cerned as they are in the public prayers of a whole na- 
tional church. An unlearned man is not to be trusted, 
and a wise man dare not trust himself; he that is ignor- 
ant cannot, he that is knowing will not." 

We are now arrived at the "Liberty of Prophesying," 
introduced by an Epistle to Lord Hatton ; from which 
some passages have been already quoted, and in which he 
justifies himself from the charge of a latitudinarian indif- 
ference to all religions, and recommends to the champi- 
ons of the faith the use of no other weapons than those 
which suit the Christian warfare : such as " preaching 
and disputation, (so that neither of them breed disturb- 
ance,) charity and sweetness, holiness of life, assiduity of 
exhortation, the word of God and prayer." 

"For these ways," he continues, " are most natural, 
most prudent, most peaceable and effectual. Only, let 
not men be hasty in calling every disliked opinion by the 
name of heresy ; and, when they have resolved that they 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 221 

will call it so, let them use the erring person like a broth- 
er, not beat him like a dog, nor convince him with a gib- 
bet, or vex him out of his understanding and persuasions." 

As a still further means of obtaining a patient hearing 
to his arguments, he gives a very short but very learned 
and curious sketch of the opinions and practice of the 
Christian church as to the question of toleration : inw T hich 
he shows that persecution was a practice unheard of 
among Christians till the church became worldly and cor- 
rupted ; that it was first used by the Arians and other 
heretics ; and that, when the orthodox began to retaliate, 
they were condemned for so doing by all the best and 
wisest of the fathers. He proves, how comparatively re- 
cent, in the Western church, has been the rise of religious 
persecution ; and that, though the Roman pontiffs show- 
ed themselves more encroaching and oppressive than any 
other prelates, yet no capital punishments were inflicted 
for heresy till the persecution of Albigenses at the instiga- 
tion of the ferocious Dominic. In England more partic- 
ularly, (he observes,) though the power of the Pope was 
no where greater than here, yet there were no executions 
formatters of opinion, till Henry the Fourth, having usurp- 
ed the crown, endeavoured, by these bloody sacrifices, to 
conciliate the priesthood. 

All those Christian sovereigns, he urges, who have re- 
ceived from succeeding ages the praise of eminent virtue 
and wisdom, have been favourable to religious toleration. 
The blessing of Providence appears, in an especial man- 
ner, to have been bestowed on all governments by which 
it has been maintained ; and he gives some remarkable 
examples of a contrary policy being chastised by foreign 
invasions, by civil calamities, and by a decay of internal 
prosperity and national power. 

He concludes by expressing his wonder, (though with- 
out denying the real guilt and danger of heresy,) that men 
should show so much zeal against false opinions, and so 
little against vicious practices ; and that while thus curious- 
ly busy about points of less importance, " they should 
neglect those glorious precepts of Christianity and holy 
life which are the glories of our religion, and would ena- 
ble us to a blessed eternity." 



222 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

The essay for which he thus endeavours to conciliate 
a favourable reception, is somewhat less extensive in its 
object than many have been led to believe, and can by no 
means lay claim to the character which has been assigned 
to it of a plea for universal toleration. The forbearance 
which he claims, he claims for those Christians only who 
unite in the confession of the apostles' creed. Of those 
sects who refuse their assent to this symbol, (as, indeed, 
there were none then in existence,) he says absolutely 
nothing ; and the exceptions which he makes to his pro- 
posed act of peace, in the thirteenth section, must in effect 
exclude from its benefit a very large proportion of those 
who profess religions hostile to Christianity. It is prob- 
able, indeed, that considering the prejudices with which 
he had to contend, he was not anxious to follow up his 
own principles to the full extent to which they conducted 
and that, in his earnestness to remedy the mutual bitter- 
ness of Christian sects, he purposely avoided treating of 
a case, which had not yet arisen, or pleading the cause of 
those who were in no present or apparent danger of incur- 
ring the weight of religious violence. 

If however he in this respect has taken a view of his 
subject narrower than he is often supposed to have done 
in another respect he extends his principles considerably 
beyond the limit of a bare abstinence from persecution. 
He would not only dissuade us from killing or imprisoning 
our brethren, he would have us unite with them in com- 
munion, and he appears to have flattered himself with the 
hope that the greatest diversity of opinions, on topics not 
absolutely essential, might be made to consist not only 
with general charity but with complete church union, by 
the mere non-inteference of authority, and by a permis- 
sion to all Christians to think and preach on such points 
according to their consciences. It is the authoritative 
decision, according to him, which in such differences, 
occasions the schism ; and he appeals to the experience 
of Christendom, for the fact that there are some points of 
the greatest practical importance, on which the greatest 
difference of opinion exists, which yet because men, are 
permitted to differ respecting them, have led to none of 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 223 

those divisions and heart burnings which have arisen from 
disputes of far less moment. " It is of greater conse- 
quence/' he urges " to believe right in the question of the 
validity or invalidity of a death bed repentance, than to 
believe aught in the question of purgatory ; and the con- 
sequences of the doctrine of predetermination are of deep- 
er and more material consideration than the products of 
the belief of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of private 
masses : and yet these great concernments, where a liber- 
ty of prophesying in these questions hath been permitted, 
hath made no distinct communion, no sects of Christians, 
and the others have, and so have those too in these pla- 
ces where they have peremptorily been determined on 
either side." 

" For/' he shortly afterwards more fully explains 
himself " if it be evinced that one heaven shall hold men 
of differing opinions, — if the unity of faith be not destroy- 
ed by that which men call differing religions, and if an 
unity of Christian charity be the duty of us all, even to- 
wards persons that are not persuaded of every proposition 
we believe, then I would fain know to what purpose are 
all those stirs and great noises in Christendom ; those 
names of faction, the several names of churches not 
distinguished by the division of kingoms, ut ecclesia 
sequatur imperium, which was the primitive rule and 
canon, but distinguished by names of sects and men ? 
These are all become instruments of hatred, thence 
come schisms and parting of communions, and then 
persecutions, and then wars and rebellion, and then 
the dissolutions of all friendships and societies. All 
these mischiefs proceed, not from this, that men are not 
of one mind, but that every opinion is made an article of 
faith, every article is the ground of a quarrel, every 
quarrel makes a faction, every faction is zealous, and all 
zeal pretends for God, and whatever is for God cannot be 
too much. We by this time are come to that pass, we 
think we love not God except we hate our brother, and 
we have not the virtue of religion unless we persecute all 
religions but our own ; for lukewarmness is so odious to 
God and man, that we, proceeding furiously upon these 



224 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

mistakes, by supposing we preserve the body we destroy 
the soul of religion, or by being zealous for faith, or, 
which is all one, for that which we mistake for faith, we 
are cold in charity, and so lose the reward of both." 

In pursuit of this great scheme of general union, he 
begins by proving that " the duty of faith is completed in 
believeing the articles of the apostles' creed," the com- 
position of which, (with the exception of the article of 
Christ's descent into hell,) he ascribes to the apostles them- 
selves, or to apostolical men in the first ages of Christi- 
anity, and which, as it contains nothing superfluous or 
which does not relate to those truths " which directly 
constitute the parts and work of our redemption," so 
must it have been necessarily esteemed sufficiently minute 
by its composers, and by that primitive church which 
adopted it as " the characteristic note of a Christian from 
a heretic, or a Jew, or an infidel." He admits, indeed, 
that it is neither unlawful nor unsafe for any of the rulers of 
the church, or any other competent judge, to extend his 
own creed to any farther propositions which he may de- 
duce from any of the articles of the apostle's creed. But 
he denies that any such deduction or exposition (unless it 
be such a thing as is at first evident to all), is fit to be 
pressed on others as an article of faith, or can w bind a 
person of a differing persuasion to subscribe under pain 
of losing his faith or being a heretic." " For," he ur- 
ges, " it is a demonstration that nothing can be necessary 
to be believed under pain of damnation, but such propo- 
sitions of which it is certain that God hath spoken and 
taught them to us, and of which it is certain that this is 
their sense and purpose. For, if the sense be uncertain, 
we can no more be obliged to believe it in a certain sense, 
than we are to believe it at all, if it were not certain that 
God delivered it. But, if it be only certain that God 
spake it, and not certain to what sense, our faith of it is 
to be as indeterminate as its sense, and it can be no other 
in the nature of the thing, nor is it consonant to God's jus- 
tice to believe of him that he can or will require more." 
And he concludes the section with a quotation from Ter- 
tullian, that, if the integrity and unity of this rule of faith 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 225 

be preserved, " in all other things men may take a liberty 
of enlarging their knowledges and prophesyings, accor- 
ding as they are assisted by the grace of God." 

This position he illustrates and enforces in the follow- 
ing sections : — 1st ; by the moderation shown in the prim- 
itive church to such eroneous opinions as related not im- 
mediately to the fundamentals of Christianity; and were 
maintained by their professors in sincerity and piety : — 
2nd; from the utter impossibility of obtaining any certain 
and universal rule of faith which shall be more definite 
and minute than the apostle's creed, either from Scrip- 
ture, tradition, the decisions of councils, the dicta of the 
ancient fathers, the authority of the Pope, or the opin- 
ion of the church universal. He thus arrives at the con- 
clusion, that no man or body of men being competent to 
judge for others in matters of faith, every man must judge 
for himself, and according to the dictates of his own rea- 
son either by choosing what guides or teachers he will 
follow, (which he admits in some cases to be the wisest 
and in all the easiest course,) or by choosing for himself 
his opinions in detail, and following his guides no further 
than his reason agrees with their dictation. That such a 
course is liable to error, he admits ; but he contends that 
such error, whether arising from confusion of understan- 
ding or honest prejudice, or any cause but such wicked 
and interested notions as cannot sway a pious person, is, 
in a pious person, innocent before God ; who is so pitiful to 
our crimes that he pardons many de toto et integro, in 
all makes abatement for the violence of temptation and 
the surprisal and invasion of our faculties, and therefore 
much less will demand of us an account of our weak- 
nesses." 

Having reached this point in his argument, he proceeds, 
by a natural transition, to show the folly and wickedness 
of punishing, by death or other severities, the exercise of 
that choice which he has shown to be in itself legitimate; 
a folly and wickedness which he further illustrates by the 
danger which exists that the same weapon which is 
employed to extirpate error, may, in some instances, be 
turned to the injury of truth ; by the inefficacy of force 

20 



226 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

in matters of opinion ; by the manner in which a reson 
to such measures derogates from the honour of the Chris- 
tian religion, and by the fact that God alone has power 
over the soul of man, " so as to command a persuasion or 
to judge a disagreeing." He shows more at length than 
in his Dedication, how strongly the stream of precedent 
and ecclesiastical antiquity sets against persecution ; and 
defines with admirable acuracy and clearness the limit and 
nature of ecclesiastical censure, and the single species of 
severity (excommunication,) which, even in cases of the 
most notorious heresy, the church has the power of ex- 
ercising. 

But even this mild and moderate and altogether spirit- 
ual jurisdiction, can only, he repeats, be exercised to rem- 
edy practical inconveniences, or to reprove such opinions 
as, by the rules w 7 hich he had previously laid down, are 
formal heresies. "The peace of the church and the uni- 
ty of her doctrine is best conserved when it is judged by 
the proportion it hath to that rule of unity which the apos- 
tles gave, that is, the creed, for the articles of mere belief, 
and the precepts of Jesus Christ and the practical rules of 
piety, which are most plain and easy, and without con- 
troversy, set down in the Gospels and writings of the 
apostles. But to multiply articles, and adopt them into 
the family of the faith, and to require assent to such ar- 
ticles which (as St. PaaPs phrase is) are doubtful of dis- 
putation, equal to the assent which w 7 e give to matters of 
faith, is to build a tower upon the top of a bulrush ; and 
the further the effect of such proceedings does extend, 
the worse they are. The very making such a law is un- 
reasonable. The inflicting spiritual censures upon them 
that cannot do so much violence to their understanding as 
to obey it, is unjust and ineffectual ; but to punish the 
person with death, or with corporeal infliction, indeed it is 
effectual, but it is, therefore, tyrannical." 

Having thus limited the ecclesiastical authority in mat- 
ters of religion, the author proceeds to the secular gov- 
ernor, whom he shows to be bound in conscience to tol- 
erate all religious opinions, because an opinion is in no 
point of view subject to his jurisdiction ; and to be bound 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 227 

no less, both in conscience and policy, to suffer men to 
teach and profess any system of Christianity which they 
themselves believe, so long as the public peace is not 
broken nor endangered, either by the evident tendency 
of the doctrines themselves, or the manner in which their 
supporters endeavour to disseminate them. And he cau- 
tions him with much earnestness, before he has recourse 
to any measures of severity, not to " call every redargu- 
tion or modest discovery of established error by the name 
of disturbance of the peace;' 5 not to be himself the first 
to break the peace by peevishness and impatience of con- 
tradiction ; to remember always the gentle spirit of Chris- 
tianity and the natural claim which all men have to lib- 
erty of conscience : and to remember, above all, the say- 
ing of Thuanus, " Haretici qui, pace data, factionibus 
scindantur, persecutione uniuntur contra regem" 

u The sum," he concludes this section by observing, " is 
this. It concerns the duty of a prince, becaase it con- 
cerns the honour of God, that all vices and every part of 
ill life be discountenanced and restrained ; and, therefore, 
in relation to that, opinions are to be dealt with. For 
the understanding being to direct the will, and opinions 
to guide our practices, they are considerable only as they 
teach impiety and vice, as they either dishonour God or 
disobey him. Now all such doctrines are to be condemn- 
ed ; but, for the persons preaching such doctrines, if they 
neither justify nor approve the pretended consequences 
which are certainly impious, they are to be separated from 
that consideration. But, if they know such consequen- 
ces and allow them, or if they do not stay till the doc- 
trines produce impiety, but take sin beforehand, and man- 
age them impiously in any sense ; or if either themselves 
or their doctrines do, really and without colour or feigned 
pretext, disturb the public peace and just interests, they 
are not to be suffered. In all other cases it is aot only 
lawful to permit them, but it is also necessary that prin- 
ces and all in authority should not persecute discrepant 
opinions. And, in such cases wherein persons not other- 
wise incompetent are bound to reprove an error, (as they 
are in many,) in all these, if the prince makes restraint, he 



228 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

hinders men from doing their duty, and from obeying the 
laws of Jesus Christ." 

The following sections are taken up with the practical 
application of these principles to the then prevailing dis- 
sensions among Christians, w 7 ith an ingenious and candid 
apology for the errors of the two sects who were, in Tay- 
lor's time, most obnoxious, the Anabaptists and the Pa- 
pists, and with a brief conclusion that churches ought to 
allow communion to all who agree with them in essentials, 
and that it is the duty of private Christians to communi- 
cate with the national church where that church requires 
no unlawful conditions of communion. From this he 
takes occasion again to remark on the danger and impro- 
priety of driving men into schism by multiplying symbols 
and subscriptions, and contracting the bounds of commun- 
ion, and the still greater wickedness of regarding all dis- 
crepant opinions as damnable in the life to come, and, in 
the present, capital. " It concerns all persons to see that 
they do their best to find out truth, and, if they do, it is 
certain that, let the error be never so damnable, they shall 
escape the error, or the misery of being damned for it. 
And, if God will not be angry at men for being invinci- 
bly deceived, why should men be angry one at another ? 
For he that is most displeased at another man's error 
may also be tempted in his own will, and as much de- 
ceived in his understanding. For, if he may fail in what 
he can choose, he may also fail in what he cannot choose ; 
his understanding is no more secured than his will, nor his 
faith more than his obedience. It is his own fault if he 
offends God in either ; but whatsoever is not to be avoid- 
ed, as errors, which are incident sometimes even to the 
best and most inquisitive of men, are not offences against 
God, and therefore not to be punished or restrained by 
men ; but all such opinions in which the public interests 
of the commonwealth, and the foundation of faith and a 
good life, are not concerned, are to be permitted freely. 
Quisque abundet in sensu sua, was the doctrine of St. 
Paul, and that his argument and conclusion too : and they 
were excellent words which St. Ambrose said in attesta- 
tion of this great truth, Nee irrvperiah est, libertatem di- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 229 

cendi wegare, nee sacerdotale id quod sentias non di- 
cer e" 

He concludes his treatise with the celebrated story of 
Abraham and the idolatrous traveller, which Franklin, 
with some little variation, gave to Lord Kaimes as a " Jew- 
ish Parable on Persecution," and which this last-named 
author published in his " Sketches of the History of Man." 
A charge of plagiarism has, on this account, been raised 
against Franklin ; though he cannot be proved to have 
given it to Lord Kaimes as his own composition, or under 
any other character than that in which Taylor had pre- 
viously published it ; that, namely, of an elegant fable 
by an uncertain author which had accidently fallen under 
his notice. It is even possible, as has been observed by a 
writer in the Edinburgh Review, that he may have met 
with it in some magazine without Taylor's name. But it 
has been unfortunate for him, that his correspondent evi- 
dently appears to have regarded it as his composition ; 
that it has been published as such in all the editions of 
Franklin's collected works ; and that, with all Franklin's 
abilities and amiable qualities, there was a degree of 
quackery in his character which, in this instance, as well 
as in that of his professional epitaph on himself, has 
made the imputation of such a theft more readily receiv- 
ed against him, than it would have been against most oth- 
er men of equal eminence. 

Whether Taylor himself really found this story where 
he professes to have done it, has been long a matter of 
suspicion. Contrary to his general custom, he gives no 
reference to his authority in the margin ; and, as the 
works of the most celebrated Rabbins had been searched 
for the passage in vain, it has been supposed that he had 
ascribed to these authors a story of his own invention, in 
order to introduce with a better grace an apt illustration 
of his moral. My learned friend Mr. Oxlee, whose inti- 
mate and extensive aquaintance with Talmudic and Ca- 
balistic learning is inferior to few of the most renowned 
Jewish doctors themselves, has, at length, discovered the 
probable source from which Taylor may have taken this 
beautiful apologue, in the Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to 
20* 



230 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

the translation of a Jewish work by George Gentius, who 
quotes it, however, not from a Hebrew writer, but from 
the Persian poet Saadi. The story is, in fact, found, 
word for w T ord, in the Bostan of this last writer, as ap- 
pears by a literal translation which I have received from 
the kindness of Lord Teignmouth. The work of Gen- 
tius appeared in 1651, a circumstance which accounts for 
the fact that the parable is introduced in the second, not 
the first edition of the "Liberty of Prophesying." That 
Taylor ascribes it to " the Jew's books, 55 may be accoun- 
ted for from his quoting at second-hand, and from the na- 
ture of the work where he found it.* 

On a work so rich in intellect, so renowned for charity ; 
which contending sects have rivalled each other in approv- 
ing, and which was the first, perhaps, since the earliest 
days of Christianity, to teach those among whom differ- 
ences were inevitable, the art of differing harmlessly, it 
would be almost impertinent to enlarge in commendation. 
A more useful, though by far more difficult task, will be 
to discriminate between these general excellencies, and 
and those points in which the author may be thought to 
have extended his principles too far, or to have fallen 
short, in his conclusions, of that universal charity to which 
his principles naturally conducted him. 

The leading position of his discourse, as it relates to the 
terms of communion, or those articles, a faith in which is 
sufficient to entitle us when alive to the sacraments of the 
church, and, in another world, to the mercies of our Re- 
deemer, he may be said to have incontestably established ; 
and by so doing to have lent a full confirmation to the 
principles and practice of the church of England, who, 
neither in baptism nor in the Lord's supper, requires more 
from any of her members than a confession of the apos- 
tles 5 creed, and a promise to keep God's commandments. 
But, the question becomes much more difficult, if, as Tay- 
lor seems to have meant, and as is implied in the very 
title of his discourse, we extend this same principle to the 
admission of persons into the public ministry. That of- 

•Note XX. 



LTFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 231 

fice, as it cannot be exercised by all, in its very nature 
supposes a selection of some and rejection of others ; and 
it is not only natural but allowable, and, generally speak- 
ing, a duty in the selectors, to fix on such persons as, be- 
ing otherwise properly qualified, entertain not only on 
the essentials of religion, but on its important and practi- 
cal, though possibly its subordinate features, what the 
Antistites Religionis themselves conceive to be the true 
opinion. Where a limited number only is to be admitted, 
this preference given to some need be considered as 
no reflection either on the morals or the Christianity 
of the rest. A man may be fit for heaven himself, whom 
we do not reckon fit for the office of guiding others thither 
by his public doctrine ; and, whether this unfitness arise 
from defective abilities, defective temper, defective learn- 
ing, or erroneous opinions, — there is no necessary oppres- 
sion or intolerance in requesting him to keep silence in 
the church, or forbidding him to disturb the weak, and 
encourage the factious, by the circulation of tenets at 
which the majority of his brethren are offended. 

It is by no means enough to object to such a line of 
procedure, that the points on which we require conformi- 
ty in our candidates for orders, are such as the apostles 
and their immediate successors passed over in silence. If 
it could be proved, (which it cannot,) that a confession 
of the symbol known by their names was all which the 
apostles required in their deacons and presbyters, it would 
not follow but that, as false doctrines arose in the church, 
it might become necessary to guard against their dissem- 
ination. But : in the instance which he mentions of the 
question which arose concerning circumcision, he appears 
to have misunderstood the sacred writers, and the obvi- 
ous purport of that sentence which was given in the coun- 
cil of Jerusalem. The point to be determined on that 
occasion was, not whether the Christians of the Jewish na- 
tion were to cease from circumcising their children, or 
from the observation of the ceremonial laws of Moses. 
There is no reason from Scripture to suppose that such a 
change as this was, in the first instance, contemplated by 
either party. The uniform practice, both of the apostles 



232 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

themselves and their immediate followers, had been, and 
was, through life, to " walk orderly and keep the law ;" 
and, however they may have held out to both Jews and 
Gentiles the fact that the " curse of the law was removed," 
and that the religious obligation to observe the Mosaic 
types had expired when those types were fulfilled, they 
seem to have been anxious not to press the abandonment, 
of customs which, in themselves, weie innocent, and, from 
their antiquity and divine appointment, venerable ; but 
to leave the abolition of such unnecessary badges of dis- 
tinction to the hand of time, and to the changes introduc- 
ed by Providence. Accordingly, the sentence which St. 
Peter proposed, and which St. James, by the common 

* consent of the apostles, promulgated, was, that the Gen- 
tiles should not be compelled to circumcise their children, 
not that the Jews should be restained from doing so ;" 
and the several bishops of the Jewish nation, who suc- 
cessively presided over the church of Jerusalem, till the 
time of Adrian, in retaining the practice of circumcision, 
did no more than exercise a discretion which the apostles 
had exercised before them, and which the Holy Ghost 
had no where forbidden. 

It is no wonder, then, that those Jewish Christians who 
adhered to the customs of their fathers, were, notwith- 
standing this distinction, accounted a sound and orthodox 
part of the Catholic church. The wonder would have 
been, had they received a different treatment. But a 
very different treatment those persons did receive who 
not content with retaining the yoke of the law themselves, 
sought, also to impose it on the Gentile converts. The 
most careless reader of St. Paul's Epistles must observe 
this distinction ; and that of such teachers he himself ex- 
pressly says, that " their mouths must be stopped." But, 
if a Christian teacher may be silenced by authorithy for 
promulgating a doctrine which, as Taylor himself would 
have admitted, is not expressly contradicted in the apos- 
tles' creed, nor manifestly contrary to good morals; a 

fortiori, a candidate for the office of teacher may be re- 
pelled if he avows that doctrine. So that we have here a 
death-blow given to that entire and unrestrained liberty of 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 233 

prophesying which Taylor seems to call for, and the ques- 
tion of what doctrine shall be publicly taught in the church 
devolves again on those ecclesiastical rulers, to whom is 
subject the spirit, not of preaching only, but of prophecy." 

But if, in such cases, a further rule is allowed besides 
the apostles' creed and its self-evident consequences, the 
question will arise, by whom that rule is to be settled. 
Shall each individual bishop, each separate presbytery, 
have a rule of their own, and, according to their several 
views of Christian truth and of doctrines essentially ne- 
cessary or otherwise, repel the candidate and silence the 
preacher ? Or, would not this give rise to an uncertainty 
and variation of the test required, far more oppressive to 
those subject to it, and far more injurious to the general 
peace and edification of the church, than any thing which 
subsists in Christian churches as they are now constituted ? 
And is it not far better to act as all Christian churches have 
acted in giving to the world beforehand 3 a public and general 
exposition of the leading doctrines which they profess to 
teach ; with which they require a conformity in those who 
seek admission to the office of public instructor; and which 
shall neither be added to by the meddling preciseness,or de- 
tracted from by the injudicious laxity of any single eccle- 
siastical governor ? 

That there is, in all such confessions, a danger, and a 
great one, (since what human institution is exempt from 
abuse ?) of attempting to define what God's Spirit has left 
undetermined, and of laying an equal stress on the essen- 
tials and circumstantials of Christianity, is what the advo- 
cate of tests is by no means called on to deny. But that 
is no sound logic which reasons from the abuse of a thing 
against its temperate use ; and the evil, where it exists, is 
a question of detail, not of principle, and to be remedied, 
not by an abolition of tests in general, but by a reforma- 
tion of the particular tests complained of. And, to pro- 
mote such reformation, and to escape such dangers, no 
considerations can be better adapted than those which 
Taylor has himself suggested at the beginning of his con- 
cluding section. 

It is, however, necessary to observe, that the power 



234 LIFE OP JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

which is here claimed for each Christian church, of ex- 
cluding from its public ministry the teachers of erroneous 
doctrines, is claimed for the church only in its spiritual 
capacity, and that it has no reference to those who are 
without its pale, and involves in itself no civil pains or 
penalties whatever. Such penalties, it cannot be too 
constantly borne in mind, the church of Him, whose king- 
dom was not of this world, has no power or title to inflict ; 
and for the civil ruler to inflict them on religious grounds, 
Taylor has clearly shown to be at once an intrusion, a 
tyranny, and an absurdity. 

If, indeed, Taylor may be thought, in his zeal for the 
liberty of prophesying, to have made it too completely in- 
dependent of ecclesiastical control, he may be said, on 
the other hand, to have been too bounded and cautious 
in his views of civil toleration, when he gives a general 
power to the civil ruler to repress or punish whatever he 
may be taught to consider as blasphemy, or open idolatry. 

The first of these crimes, if not very accurately defin- 
ed, might involve within its net very many descriptions of 
persons whom Taylor would have been sorry to behold 
the victims of religious severities. The Deist and the 
Jew, who maintain Christ to bean impostor, unquestiona- 
bly blaspheme the Divine Teacher of Christians ; the 
modern Unitarian, who maintains him to be a mere man 
of men, the Son of Joseph, as surely detracts from the 
dignity of that Person whom the majority of Christians 
adore, and by departing from the apostles' creed, has com- 
pletely excluded himself from its protection ; and, if known 
idolatry may be repressed by violence, or punished by the 
sword, we justify at once all the odious severities of the 
Spaniards and the Portuguese towards their heathen sub- 
jects, if we do not involve in the same snare our fellow 
Christians of the Greek and Roman communions. 

It is probable, indeed, as none of these persons were, 
at that time, in any immediate danger of persecution, 
(since for the case of the Roman Catholics he afterwards 
provided, and the Socinians had not as yet advanced to 
their modern pitch of free thinking,) that Taylor was not 
anxious to pursue his own principles to an extent which 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 235 

might give offence to those whom he desired to conciliate. 
It is certain, that his arguments against punishing men for 
following the dictates of an erroneous conscience, as well 
as that which is taken from the dishonour done to Chris- 
tianity, by supposing it to need any other defence than 
those weapons of argument and good life by which it sub- 
dued the world, are no less cogent against all persecution 
whatever, than against that which has for its subject the 
minor dissensions of Christendom. 

Nor is there any real weight in the difficulty which ap- 
pears to have perplexed him, in what manner to recon- 
cile the duty incumbent on every magistrate to repress all 
open acts of sin and impiety, w 7 ith the toleration which 
the same magistrate may be called on to grant to the 
worshippers of idols, or to the assailant of Christianity. 
That difficulty arises from a misapprehension of the mag- 
istrate's power, whose office, as it is purely civil and sec- 
ular, has no direct concern with the souls of men, and who 
is neither bound nor authorized to interfere between man 
and his Maker, or to take on himself the punishment of 
offences against God, except where those offences disturb 
the temporal peace, or endanger the temporal property of 
the subject. 

Thus, as idolatry, abstractedly considered, is a crime 
against God, and not against man, it is a crime, the pun- 
ishment of which God may be conceived to have reserv- 
ed to himself, and which the secular prince is not called 
on to punish, or to repress any otherwise than by his own 
example, and by securing to his subjects the means of re- 
ligious instruction. Nor can the precedent of the Jewish 
law avail to lead us to a different conclusion ; since, that 
which might be expedient and necessary under the pecu- 
liar circumstances of their theocracy, is no example for us 
who live under dispensations entirely different ; and since, 
though God may be conceived, as He did it in this in- 
stance, to delegate a part of his power to a particular 
magistrate, yet other magistrates, who have no such ex- 
press commission or direct command, would be guilty of 
usurpation no less than cruelty, if they presumed to de- 
termine on the conduct of " another man's servant." 



236 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

But, if the particular species of idolatry complained 
of be attended with obscure or cruel rites ; or, if the 
public processions or ostentatious sacrifices of its votaries 
have an evident tendency to shock the feelings of the 
majority of their fellow-citizens, and disturb the public 
tranquillity, the magistrate is not only permitted, but obli- 
ged in conscience to punish or restrain them according to 
his power, and in such measure as the interests of the 
community under his charge may require. 

Thus the Persians did ill under Xexres, in destroying 
the Grecian temples, because not only has a foreign pow- 
er no right to interfere in the national religion of any- 
state, but because the idolatry of Greece involved no 
practices, that we know of, inconsistent with the general 
peace of society. But the Roman senate did well, in 
repressing and punishing the Bacchanalians, because they 
had sufficient evidence of the debauchery and violence 
with which those infernal rites were celebrated. Nor is 
it useless to observe, that the picture which is handed 
down to us of the open whoredom and human sacrifices 
w r ith which the gods of the Canaanites were worshipped, 
would be, in itself, and without any divine injunction, a 
good reason why Moses should have prohibited, under the 
severest penal ties,the practice among his own people of 
such forms of pollution and bloodshed. 

In like manner, though it would, indeed, be the height 
of wickedness and folly, to forbid the Hindoos, in their 
own country, to address their devotions to whatever idols, 
and in whatever form they pleased ; yet, if certain Hin- 
doos, resident in London, were to institute a public pro- 
cession in honour of Juggernaut, it would be no persecu- 
tion to command them to perform their acts of faith in 
private ; while, if in the course of those acts any thing ac- 
tually criminal took place,it would not be the less an offence 
against the laws, and punishable by the hand of justice, 
however it might have arisen from the dictates of a real 
or pretended superstition. Nor, whatever religious prej- 
udice might be pleaded, did our Indian government do 
wrong in forbidding the murder of female children, nor 
would it do wrong, (however a real or mistaken policy may 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 237 

forbid the measure,) in preventing the sacrifice of widows 
on the funeral piles of their husbands. 

The distinction which has been laid down as to actions, 
will apply with equal accuracy to doctrines. Those 
which are immediately, or in their evident and avowed 
consequences, injurious to civil society, and those only, 
are fit subjects for suppression and punishment ; and they 
are so, not because they are offences against God, but 
because they are dangerous to mankind. Thus, if a man 
maintains in argument the falsehood of the apostle's creed, 
he is, perhaps, a blasphemer, certainly an infidel or an 
heretic ; but his crime is not one which it belongs to the 
magistrate to punish. But the man who persuades his 
neighbours to insurrection, murder, incest, a promiscuous 
intercourse of the sexes, or the invasion of private prop- 
erty ; the preacher of atheism, who lays the axe to the 
root of all moral obligation, and the impugner of a future 
state of retribution, who deprives morality of its only ef- 
fectual sanction, — such men as these, being common en- 
emies to the peace of the world, are to be put down and 
repressed by whatever severities are necessary to abate the 
nuisance. With these exceptions, I know 7 no limit to the 
toleration of speculative opinions. It is true, indeed, that 
the teacher of any opinion, false or true, who seeks to 
inflame in his cause the bad passions of the multitude ; 
who violates the decency due even to established error, 
and who assails not only the opinions but the characters 
and motives of those opposed to him ; will, under all cir- 
cumstances be deserving of general indignation, and, un- 
der particular circumstances, may be a proper subject of 
legal coercion. But this is as a breaker of the public 
peace, not as an enemy to that religion, which, as it is 
founded on argument alone, can, by argumeut alone, be 
legitimately or effectually defended. The length of this 
digression will, I trust, be pardoned, on account of the 
importance of the interests which its subject involves, and 
the necessity which there appeared of defining more clearly 
what Taylor had left uncertain. On the beauty of partic- 
ular passages in the liberty of prophesying, — on its gen- 
eral eloquence and clearness of reasoning, as well as on 
21 



238 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

the admirable temper and moderation which throughout 
distinguish it, any further observations are needless. 

" The Doctrine of Repentance/' or " Unum Neces- 
sarium," is introduced by two letters dedicatory ; the 
first to lord Carbery, the second, which also is the preface, 
inscribed to Duppa, bishop of Sarum, and Warner of 
Rochester, as well as to the general body of the English 
clergy. 

In the first of these he apologizes for his so constant 
recurrence to the inculcation of repentance, by the neces- 
sity w 7 hich there was of counteracting the devices which 
men had found out to excuse themselves from this neces- 
sary labour. In the second, he describes his work as sug- 
gested by the many false principles and dangerous errors 
respecting a death-bed repentance, venial sins, and sins 
of infirmity; — contrition and attrition; — confession, pe- 
nnace, and absolution, which (during his preparatory 
studies in order to his great undertaking on the " Rule of 
Conscience/') he had met w T ith in the works of preceding 
casuists. " It was in vain/' he tells us, " to dispute con- 
cerning a single case whether it were law r ful or no, when, 
by the general discoursings of men, it might be permitted 
to live in states of sin without danger or reproof, as to 
the final event of souls. I thought it, therefore, necessa- 
ry, by way of address and preparation to the publication 
of the particulars, that it should appear to be necessary 
for a man to live a holy life : and that it could be of con- 
cern to him to inquire into the very minutes of his con- 
science for if it be no matter how men live, and if the 
hope of heaven can stand well w r ith a wicked life, there 
is nothing in the world more unnecessary than to inquire 
after cases of conscience. And if it be sufficient for a 
man, at the last to cry out for pardon for having all his 
life-time neither regarded laws nor conscience, certainly 
they have found out a better compendium of religion, and 
need not be troubled with a variety of rules and cautions 
of carefulness and a lasting holiness ; nor think concern- 
ing any action or state of life, whether it be lawful or not 
lawful ; for it is all one whether it be or no, since nei- 
ther one nor the other will easily change the event of 
things." 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 239 

To illustrate his meaning more fully, he goes on to 
suppose a person in known habits of sin, fortifying him- 
self against the rebukes of conscience by the topics of 
comfort usually suggested either by those who extenuate 
their personal faults by inscribing them to the infirmity of 
nature, or by those who rely on the chance of a death-bed 
repentance, and on that " attrition," or terror of God's 
judgments against sin which the approach of death and 
the clamours of conscience may reasonably be expected 
to generate. 

In this, in a tone of lofty sarcasm, he instances what he 
esteems the dangerous encouragements held out to sin by 
those who have been more careful of the sinner's ease 
than his soul ; and after a digression to which I shall 
hereafter have occasion to refer, he exhorts the clergy 
to employ the full influence of their prayers, their author- 
ity, and their wisdom, to effect " that the strictness of a 
holy life may be thought necessary, and that repentance 
may be no more that trfling little piece of duty to which 
the errors of the late schools of learning, and the desires 
of men to be deceived in this article, have reduced it." 

Such an opening would lead us to expect a severe book, 
and as " a severe book," he describes it in his dedication 
to lord Carbery. It does, indeed, inculcate the necessi- 
ty of an earlier and more lasting, a more earnest, and a more 
particular and minute repentance than the indolence of 
man is often willing to undertake, or his self-flattery to 
consider necessary. 

Yet I am not aware that he has at all exceeded the 
strictness of his rules as laid down in his previous writings, 
or that he has expressed any greater austerity than is jus- 
tified by the danger of sin, by the uncertainty of life, and 
the further uncertainty that, if life is spared, God's grace 
may be also continued to us. In discussing the probable 
event of a death-bed repentance, he has even expressed 
himself with more caution than he had done on some for- 
mer occasions, referring men not only to the secret mer- 
cies of God, but to the fact that no precise period of time 
is laid down in Scripture as absolutely necessary to the 
work of repentance ; and concluding with some admirable 



240 

rules for the conduct of a penitent under such unhappy 
circumstances. Such a man, he tells us, by self-exami- 
nation, confession, restitution, submission to God's will,, 
and a readiness to suffer whatever can come, by pouring 
out his complaints with great fervour and humility, and 
adding the best resolutions and the warmest charity in his 
power, may do f c all that can be done at that time, and 
as well as it can then be done." He concludes this 
branch of his subject, as he does all his other chapters, 
with very moving and appropriate prayers, which are re- 
markably plainer, and, therefore, I think, much better 
than those in his " Life of Christ," and his " Holy 
Living." 

I have mentioned this particular case of penitence, in 
the first instance, because it was this in which the harsh- 
ness which Taylor predicates of his own work was chief- 
ly likely to have appeared, and in which his previous ex- 
pressions had been such as to excite a prejudice against 
the whole treatise. This, however was not a question on 
which Taylor so much differed from contemporary divines, 
as he did on some other and very important topics which 
were naturally involved in the M Doctrine of Repentance," 
and, more particularly, of sins of infirmity. I mean the 
question of the origin and amount of man's natural inabil- 
ity to serve or please his Maker. 

On this point Taylor has expressed himself, in his pre- 
face, prepared to expect the charge of a departure from 
the doctrine of the church of England ; and, as we have 
seen, he had already, in a former work, used language 
which might justly expose him to that suspicion. It may, 
therefore, be desireable to enter a little more fully into 
the principles which he really maintained, and the grounds 
on which he maintained them, both because those princi- 
ples, — though not always cautiously expressed, were, in 
fact, much nearer the truth than they have been some- 
times represented ; and because it will not be very diffi- 
cult, to show wherein consisted that inaccuracy of reason- 
ing which led him into a partial heterodoxy. 

The plan of Taylor's " Essay on Repentance," if not 
necessarily, at least naturally, involved a discussion of 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 241 

original sin, and its consequences. He began by proving 
the necessity of repentance ; — secondly, he went on to 
discuss its nature ; — thirdly, he proceeded to examine the 
things which are to be repented of. 

Having, under the third head, discussed and overturn- 
ed the Romish distinction between mortal and venial sins, 
(proving that all presumptuous and unrepented sin must 
be mortal,) and having prescribed the manner in which 
" actual single sins," and " habitual sins," were to be sor- 
rowed for and forsaken, he w r as led to inquire what other 
sins, if any there were, which needed a particular repent- 
ance ? 

And here, two questions occurred, first, whether men 
are bound to repent of original sin ? And, secondly, in 
what light are sins of infirmity to be regarded ? 

The first question naturally arose from the tenets then 
popular among divines. The second from the large al- 
lowance which men of carnal minds were apt to make 
themselves, when they contended that the existence of 
extremely sinful habits might not be inconsistent with a 
state of grace, inasmuch as the corruptions of nature still 
clung to the elect, and it was not they who transgressed, 
but sin that dwelt in them. 

These points disposed of, the remainder of the discus- 
sion proceeded in its regular channel. The author, in the 
ninth chapter of his work, went on to show the possibility 
of repentance, and its efficacy to the remission of sin. 
Under this head were involved some very curious secon- 
dary topics, as to the principles and practice of the an- 
cient church with regard to those who had fallen into trans- 
gression after baptism ; and the nature of u the sin against 
the Holy Ghost, and in what sense it is or may be un- 
pardonable." 

The tenth chapter treated of the fruits of repentance ; 
— of the efficacy or inefficacy of that imperfect sorrow for 
sin which the Roman Catholics call " attrition ;" — of the 
vanity of confession, absolution, penance, and all the other 
machinery of the Romish system, to procure pardon with- 
out a real " contrition," accompanied with some admira- 
ble observations on the nature and proper use of these 

21* 



242 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D . D. 

ecclesiastical helps to repentance and comforts to the pen- 
itent. 

Each portion of the work concludes with applicable 
prayers, conceived in Taylor's warmest spirit of devotion, 
and in his improved and more simple style. The whole 
treatise evidently marks a man in earnest for salvation of 
souls, and actuated by the feeling which he describes as 
his principal motive for undertaking it ; — " Tu autem con- 
versus, confirma fratres !" — "I hope," are his words, i( I 
have received many of the mercies of a repenting sinner, 
and I have felt the turnings and varieties of spiritual inte- 
courses ; and I have often observed the advantages in min- 
istering to others, and am most confident that the greatest 
benefits of our office may, with best effect, be communi- 
cated to souls in personal and particular ministrations. 
In the following book I have given advices, and have as- 
serted many truths in order to all this. I have endeav- 
oured to break in pieces almost all those propositions, 
upon the confidence of which men have been negligent of 
severe and strict living ; I have cancelled some false 
grounds on which many answers in moral theology used to 
be made to inquiries in cases of conscience ; I have, ac- 
cording to my weak ability, described all necessities and 
great inducements of a holy life ; and have endeavoured 
to do it so plainly, that it may be useful to every man, 
and so inoffensively, that it may hurt no man." 

I have stated these particulars both to show the manner 
in which the offensive section is connected with the body 
of the work, and, still more, to convince those who might 
otherwise have turned away from that work as controver- 
sial, or, perhaps, heretical, that by far the greatest pro- 
portion of its contents is purely and valuably practical ; 
that they who may dissent most strongly from his conclu- 
sions in particular chapters, may read the rest with abund- 
ant approbation and advantage, and that, more particular- 
ly, his observations on mortal and venial sins ; on the sin 
against the Holy Ghost, — and, on the devices of the Ro- 
mish clergy, are distinguished by great originality and 
justness of sentiment, by acute argument, and a wide and 
critical acquaintance with Scripture and ecclesiastical anti- 
quity. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 243 

The question. "Whether men are bound to repent of 
original sin ?" — he might, perhaps, have answered by ob- 
serving simply, (as he has incidentally noticed,) that by 
the consent of those theologians who have attached most 
importance to it, original sin is remitted in baptism as to 
any punishment which might accrue from it ; that, though 
it adheres to us, it is not penally imputed to us, and that 
what is innate and unavoidable is a misfortune, not a trans- 
gression, and therefore, no proper subject for repentance. 

Nor is the solidity of this answer shaken by the opin- 
ion of Augustine, that "all our life-time, we are bound to 
mourn for the inconveniences and evil consequences deriv- 
ed from original sin ;" — or by the determination of our 
church that " concupiscence" (which is allowed, on all 
hands, to be a necessary consequent of Adam's fall, and 
a mode in which the original corruption shows itself,) 
"partakes of the nature of sin." 

It is, no doubt, a legitimate cause for concern, in those 
who either desire God's glory, or the happiness of their 
fellow-creatures, that they have no worthier sacrifice to 
render to the one than such imperfect services as only are 
in our power, — and that the other are (under the present 
state of things) exposed to so much misery which we can 

neither remove nor materiallv alleviate. And a knowl- 

mi 

edge of our fallen condition, as it must necessarily make 
us humble and cautious, so it may w r ell serve to excite in 
us an aspiration after a better and happier existence, — 
the very glories of which, while we are banished from 
them, must make the heart sick with hope delayed. 

If this, however, be called repentance, it is an improper 
use of the term, which is usually and correctly applied to 
such a sorrow as is excited by the commission of actions 
which we might have left undone, or by a neglect of such 
wise or virtuous deeds as have been in our power. It 
follows, therefore, that repentance, in its proper meaning, 
is not applicable to original sin. 

It is very true, (though Taylor has in vain and very 
needlessly, laboured to get rid of the supposed difficulty,) 
that whatever is displeasing to God and contrary to the 



244 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

purposes of his creation, is a sin; though, it arises fyom 
causes over which we have no control, a merciful God will 
not impute it to us. And it is thus that " concupiscence, 5 y 
like every evil thought, is said by our church to " partake 
of the nature of sin," inasmuch as the overt act of an un- 
clean desire is in itself offensive to the God of purity, 
though, unless we encourage or indulge in it, the God of 
mercy may overlook it in us, as a necessary consequence 
of our fallen condition ; a monument of that wretchedness 
from which we are made free by Christ. But this will 
not put it into our power to repent of what we cannot 
help, though it may exalt our notions of God's goodness, 
as well as of our own daily dependance on his bounty and 
daily need of his forgiveness. 

Still, however, the question remained, " if we cannot 
repent of original sin, why are we to be punished for it ?" 
a difficulty which Taylor solved by cutting the knot at 
once, and denying that any man, for original sin alone, 
would be punished with damnation. A conclusion this 
was which all Arminians and some Calvinists would join 
him in maintaining, but in arriving at which his process 
was not a happy one. 

The answer, apparently most obvious, and which, as I 
conceive, would have been most consistent with the gen- 
eral language of inspiration, would have been, that, with- 
out extenuating the amount of human corruption, or the 
fatal consequences which, if things had been left to their 
natural course, must have been incurred by all Adam's 
posterity ; it is plain from Scripture that, in point of fact, 
the world never was thus left to itself. Where iniquity 
abounded, grace did much more abound. The promise 
of a Redeemer was made as soon as our first parents had 
sinned, and before they had earned their name of parent; 
and the sacrifice of Christ is allowed, on all hands, to have 
had a retrospective as well as a prospective efficacy, which, 
in all those who were brought to a knowledge of him, eith- 
er before or after his coming, was fruitful of grace to en- 
able them to struggle against their innate corruption, and 
of merciful atonement to free them from the punishment 
of those stains which still adhered to their nature. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 245 

To the objection that this dispensation only applied to 
the converted and baptized, — to those who had received 
the knowledge and badge of salvation, while infants un- 
baptized, and heathens, remained liable to God's wrath, 
and heirs of utter damnation, — he might have rejoined, 
that all such must be left to the uncovenanted mercies of a 
good and gracious Father ; or he might have given, per- 
haps, a more plausible answer still. — that the merits of 
Christ's death and intercession may extend far beyond the 
limits of his visible church ; that his grace may supply the 
unavoidable deficiences of those who have not heard his 
name ; and that many may be led by his Spirit, and sav- 
ed by his blood, who have only known of God that u he 
is, and that he is the re warder of them that diligently seek 
him." This is pretty nearly the account which is given 
by the bishop of Winchester, in his able commentary on 
the eighteenth article of our church ; nor do I know any 
solution which can more satisfactorily reconcile the cer- 
tainty and greatness of the natural corruption of man, and 
his consequent need of a Redeemer, with the fact that the 
name of this Redeemer is not yet made known to all, and 
the presumption that a just and merciful God will not treat 
the impotent as if they were wilfully rebellious. 

Unfortunately, Taylor went to work by another pro- 
cess, and busied himself, first, in extenuating the great- 
ness and evil consequences of Adam's fall ; next, in ex- 
alting the free-will and remaining powers of man ; lastly, 
in denying that concupiscence could be in itself sinful, un- 
less it proceeded to a deliberate and cherished image, to 
which the soul reverted with pleasure. 

His opinion as to the first of these points was the same 
with some of the schoolmen,* who believed that Adam, 
as first created, was no better nor wiser than any of his 
descendants ; but that, when he was placed in Paradise, 
a supernatural grace was given to him, which enabled him 
to please God; to resist temptation, — and, by the use of 
the appointed and sacramental means, to live for ever. 
Accordingly, the effect of his fall was, when thus ex- 
Note YY. 



246 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

plained, no more than a return to his natural condition, 
and his children lost nothing but the prospect of succeed- 
ing to certain valuable privileges which were theirs in re- 
version only, and were not inherent but superadded gifts, 
even in the instance of their first parent. 

If he erred in the adoption of this doctrine, he certain- 
ly erred in good company, inasmuch as the same was 
maintained by Bull and by archbishop King. It is, how- 
ever, a doctrine which can hardly stand the test of Scrip- 
ture, which not only is silent as to any superadded quali- 
fications conferred on Adam to enable him to keep the 
first covenant, but which, moreover, expressly tells us, that 
God created man upright. The question, however, is 
apparently of no practical importance, since, at whatever 
time Adam received the perfections of his being, whether 
at or after his creation, the consequences of the loss of 
those perfections would be the same both to himself and 
his descendants. 

Taylor, however, went on to deny that the depravation 
of man's nature, after the fall, was so total as had been 
generally apprehended; and to attack the conclusions of 
the Westminster divines, who maintained, not only that 
man was " very far gone from original righteousness," but 
that he was altogether perverted, and incapable of any 
thing but evil. 

He asserted, on the contrary, that amid the deplorable 
ruin of the world, some fragments of the Divine image 
might yet be discovered ; that not only fredom of will re- 
mained, but that, in some particular cases, the tendency 
of man was on the side of virtue. — " A man cannot natu- 
rally hate God, if he knows any thing of him. — A man 
naturally loves his parents ; he naturally hates some sort 
of uncleanness. He naturally loves and preserves him- 
self ; and all those sins which are unnatural, are such 
which nature hates; and the law of nature commands all 
the great instances of virtue, and marks out all the great 
lines of justice." — " Here only our nature is defective. 
We do not naturally know, nor yet naturally love, those 
supernatural excellencies which are appointed and com- 
manded by God, as the means of bringing us to a super- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR D.D. 247 

natural condition. That is, without God's grace, and the 
renovation of the Spirit, we cannot be saved." 

Here, too, it is probable that most Arminians will agree 
that he had a juster view of human nature as it now ex- 
ists, and pursued a more correct interpretation of some 
well known passages of Scripture, than his opponents. 
He has here, in fact said no more than bishop Butler 
and the bishop of Winchester have both maintained in 
discussing the same intricate subject. 

The fact is, indeed, that, with the allowances which 
all these divines have made, — the difference between 
their view of man's corruption, and that which is taken 
by the Calvinists, is not, as to any practical consequence, 
worth disputing. Both sides allow that man is so far 
fallen as to be unable, without grace, to rise to heaven or 
escape everlasting punishment ; and Taylor, in particu- 
lar, has, in many of his argumentative, and all his devo- 
tional passages, admitted in the humblest language, his 
vileness, his helplessness, his worthlessness. But, if the 
ruin be effectual, it signifies little whether it be total ; and 
if man is, by nature, the heir of wrath, it is a question of 
very inferior importance, whether there may or may not 
be some scattered good qualities yet remaining about him, 
which may make a difference in his final lot, so far at least 
as a mitigation of punishment. Augustine himself nev- 
er taught that Socrates and Marcus Aurelius were to be 
ranked in the same category of eternal suffering with Si- 
mon Magus and Nero ; but Augustine, nevertheless, like 
the Romish church, and the Calvinists, was peremptory in 
consigning them to some portion of everlasting misery, 
and, in fact, if it be allowed that no flesh can escape ex- 
cept through Christ, it seems absolutely necessary, if we 
would escape from these revolting consequences, to sup- 
pose, as has been already hinted, an extension of the 
merits of Christ's blood, and the help of his Holy Spirit, 
beyond the limits of the visible church, and the list of 
those who have heard the tidings of salvation. 

This Taylor appears, from some expressions in his 
" further Explications," to have suspected. But he has 
not followed up this presumption to any length, and, in 



248 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

consequence, fluctuates between Augustine and Pelagius, 
too deeply impressed with the mercy of God to assent to 
the harsh doctrines of the first ; too conscious of the ne- 
cessity of spiritual illumination to embrace the self-flattery 
of the second. 

This is not the only instance, however, in which he has 
underrated the consequences of Adam's transgression, 
He conceives that the sin of Adam and its immediate con- 
sequences, were answerable only for a small, " the smal- 
lest part," of the present corruption of our species. — " It 
is not his fault alone, nor ours alone, and neither of us is 
innocent." — " A great part is a natural impotency, and 
the other is brought in by our own folly." He imputes 
it, in great part, to the " many concurrent causes of evil 
which have influence upon communities of men, such as 
are, evil examples, the similitude of Adam's transgress- 
ion, vices of princes, wars, impurity, ignorance, error, false 
principles, flattery, interest, fear, partiality, authority, evil 
law T s, heresy, schism, spite and ambition, natural inclina- 
tion, and other principiant causes, which, proceeding 
from the natural weakness of human constitution, are the 
fountain and proper causes of many consequent evils." 

Surely to represent those as concurrent causes, which, 
by his own account of them, proceed from the great and 
common cause, is neither good logic nor good divinity. 
It is not even correct to say that the evil which is with- 
in us, and always ready to break forth on occasion, 
is materially increased by what are, at most its exciting 
causes, and some of which are only the different modes 
and places in which the same internal corruption shows 
itself. 

If it were true, which he supposes, after St. Chrysos- 
tom, that " Adam having begun the principal of sin, we 
have added the interest ;" that " every age grows worse, 
and adds some iniquity of its own to the former exam- 
ples," we should have long since arrived at an insupera- 
ble and insufferable height of iniquity ; the earth would 
have loathed us as she loathed the Canaanites, and the 
u cursed race" would have been, ere now, exterminated 
by its increasing vices and violence. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 249 

But experience reads us a lesson extremely different. 
She gives us no reason to believe that any given form of 
society which the world has yet seen, has less than its 
share of peculiar occasions of evil. If civilized and pol- 
ished, society has more temptations, it has also more sal- 
utary restraints ; and even the dangers which beset such 
a state of existence, are, if more numerous, hardly so 
formidable, as those of the earlier and ruder pages of his- 
tory, where force is the law, and the strong man, and he 
only, " does that which is right in his own eyes." 

So far from a progressive increase of wickedness, from 
the hypothesis of a golden age, deteriorated slowly into 
silver, brass, and iron ; we find, on the contrary, while 
the family of man was small, and the intercourse of man 
with God not yet unfrequent ; while want and tyranny, 
and the snares of larger communities, were unknown, 
and while the recent punishment of the species, and the 
dreadful forms of the cherubim, yet visible on the ascent 
to Paradise, must have prevented all causes of depravity, 
but the one great cause, from operating, the first-born of 
Adam, for a very small offence, if any offence at all, be- 
came the deliberate murderer of his brother. And while 
the natural life of man was yet a thousand years ; while 
the penitent father and monarch of men was scarcely 
cold in his grave ; we read of the earth being full of vio- 
lence, and of sins which called down a common destruc- 
tion on all but a single family. 

These facts may convince us that we suffer not from a 
slowly accumulated burden, but from a malady at once 
contracted ; that there is no reason to believe that the 
first access of wickedness was slighter than its more con- 
firmed stages ; or that any one age of the world has suffi- 
cient reason to complain of a greater abundance of iniqui- 
ty than its fellows. On the whole, perhaps, the more 
polished and educated ages have the advantage, and the 
admonition of Protagoras might apply to those who desire 
the homeliness of a more simple state of society. 

c Ovzo)g diov itul vvv, oazig gov ddwcoTccTog q>aivET<u dv- 
dgconog vtiv iv vofioig y.av dvdqwTtoig TBdga/uiLiepwv^ dwaiov 
dvjov eivat, xat, dyfiiovgyov tovtov tov ngay^ajog, ei ddov 

22 



250 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

(xvtov xqivBoQai nqog dvdqwnovg dig fusTrj naidsia evil utitb 
dixcKJTr/Qia, [lyre vofioi, dvayni] fxi]de^iia dianavTog dvayxa- 
tovaa dQ6ii]g eni/ueXeloQat,, dlfc eiev dyqtoi, jiveg ) diot, neo 
6vg Tieqvat, GegexQaTrjg d noiqjrjg ididu^ev em Arjpatb)- r\ 
ocpodqa iv joig joiovioig dvdqwnoig ysvo/uevog tooneq ot iv 
exsivG) TO) %OQ(p jLuoapOgcrinoi, dyanrjcraig dp ii ivjvyoig 
3 EvgvSaTO) y.av Ogvvcovda , xat, dvolocpvgal dv noOuv t^v 
i(hv iv6a.be dvOqajncov novijQiav. 

There are other incidental topics in the Essay on Re- 
pentance, and its apologies, on which the dicta of Taylor 
must be received with caution. He, in one passage, 
while reckoning up the causes which have added to the 
stock of Adam's original corruption, mentions, as one of 
them, the silence of God during the earliest ages of the 
world, on the subject of a life beyond the grave. 

" The first great cause of an universal impiety is, that, 
at first, God had made no promises of heaven ; he had 
not propounded any glorious rewards, to be as an argu- 
ment to support the superior faculty against the inferior, 
that is, to make the will choose the best and leave the 
worst, and to be as a reward for suffering contradiction." 
— " If God had been pleased to have promised to Adam 
the glories he hath promised to us, it is not to be suppos- 
ed he had fallen so easily. But he did not, and so he 
fell, and all the world followed his example, and most up- 
on this account ; till it pleased God, after he had tried 
the world with temporal promises, and found them also 
insufficient/ 5 — " to cause us to be born anew by the rev- 
elations and promises of Jesus Christ." 

To say nothing of the inconsistency with which a writer, 
who is the strenuous advocate of man's free-will, lest God 
should be suspected to be the author of sin, imputes to 
God in almost express words, a suppression of those lights 
which only are effectual to keep men from sin ; there are 
few mistakes more palpable, or more easily refuted, than 
that which supposes the ancient Israelites, or their patri- 
archal ancestors, to have been without a knowledge of the 
immortality of the soul. The book of Job (perhaps the 
oldest in the w T orld) expressly acknowledges it ; St. Paul 
when reasoning on the words of Jacob, respecting his pil- 
grimage, speaks in a manner which proves that, in his 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYOD. LR,D. 251 

oipinion, the father of the tribes expected such an endur- 
ing city ; — the repeated promises of the Messiah, to arise 
from the race of Abraham, could have been no comfort 
to those who were, many generations before his coming, 
to be laid to sleep in the cave of Macpelah, unless they 
expected that they also were to awaken, and, with their 
descendants, to share in the privileges which that great 
Redeemer was to purchase. It is humiliating to see any 
men of genius and learning involved in the defence of 
such a paradox ; but what shall be said, when those 
men are Jeremy Taylor and Warburton ? 

Still, as has been already shown, in the practical and 
devotional parts, and even in those chapters which, exclu- 
sivelv, contain the erroneous assertions to which I have 
alluded, there is abundance which may be read with ad- 
miration and improvement He has sifted with uncom- 
mon force and learning the errors of Calvinism, as they 
respect the absolute decrees of God, and the damnation 
of unbaptized infants. His defence of free-will from the 
writings of the early fathers will, though shorter, bear no 
unfavourable comparison with bishop Tomline's learned 
and able treatise on the same subject ; and, on the whole, 
though the work is by no means faultless, it is still the 
work of the same author with the " Liberty of Prophe- 
sying," and the " Holy Living and Dying." 

Having thus largely discussed the difference which, on 
the topic of original sin, existed between Taylor and the 
majority of the church of England, — it is unnecessary 
for me to take any further notice of the works in which 
he re-stated and justified his peculiar opinion, the letters 
to Warner, and that to the Countess of Devonshire. 

I pass on, therefore, to the essay which follows next in 
the series, and which is also dedicated to Warner ; his 
" Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed 
Sacrament, proved against the Doctrine of Transubstan- 
tiation," — a powerful and learned disquisition, of which 
the conclusions and doctrines deserve unqualified praise; 
though, even here, a desire to conciliate his antagonists, 
or an anxiety to raise as high as possible the honour of 
the Christian altar, has involved him occasionally in an 



252 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

illogical mode of reasoning, and thrown a needless ob- 
scurity around a plain doctrine of the Protestant church, 
and some very clear and comfortable texts of Scrip- 
ture. 

Thus he begins with stating the doctrine of the Protest- 
ants as to Christ's presence in the sacrament, as if it were, 
that " the symbols become changed into the body and 
blood of Christ, after a sacramental, that is, in a spiritual 
real manner ; so that all that worthily communicate, do 
by faith receive Christ really, effectually, and to all the 
purposes of his passion." In these words his meaning is 
pretty evident, but his manner of expression is hardly ac- 
curate. 

How does he understand the word sacramental ? He 
would probably answer, that a sacrament is a symbol ; a 
sign of something besides itself, — " a means whereby we 
receive the thing intended, and a pledge to assure us 
thereof ." In the present instance, then, it is a sign of 
Christ's body and blood ; it is a means whereby our souls 
partake in the graces flowing from his sacrifice,and a pledge 
to assure us of our participation in those benefits. But, 
with " sacramental," in this sense, the term real is utter- 
ly inconsistent, inasmuch as the change which " sacra- 
mental" implies is figurative and conventional only. If 
a counter is taken to pass for a guinea, a change has un- 
doubtedly taken place in its virtues and its effects, but it 
has not become a real golden coin. It is conventionally 
worth more than it was, but it is ivory and a counter still. 
And, though we reverence the bread and wine after con- 
secration, as the authentic image of the body and bJood 
of him who died for us, it is not correct to say that any 
real change has taken place in their nature, though they 
have undoubtedly become the means of our obtaining a 
spiritual blessing. There are, in Scripture, two mean- 
ings of the word spiritual : the one, something detached 
from and superior to matter ; which is, apparently the 
sense in which St. Paul (in Taylor's own illustration,) 
contrasts the heavenly or spiritual tabernacle, with that 
tent which Moses set up as its image ; the other, what 
we should more usually express by virtual, as when the 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 253 

same apostle speaks of himself as present in spirit, in the 
sentence pronounced in his absence, but by his authori- 
ty, on the incestuous Corinthian. In this latter sense, 
the thing signified or represented is always spiritually pre- 
sent with its sign or representation, provided that this 
last is, in the first place, authentic ; and, secondly, em- 
powered to produce the same effect which its principal, if 
present would have done. Thus, Christ was spiritually 
present as a Redeemer and a sacrifice for sin, in all the 
writes of the Jewish law, which, by God's appointment, 
shadowed out the benefits which his death was to bestow ; 
and conveyed a share in those benefits to the Israelites, 
who partook in them faithfully. And this, as I conceive, 
is the sense in which he is also apprehended to be pres- 
ent in his capacity of victim, and to give his body and 
blood for our spiritual support, in the sacrament of the 
eucharist. 

But this virtual presence is so far from a redone, that 
it is absolutely opposed to it. And this is the reason why 
the Romanists, who maintain the latter in its grosser sense, 
contend so strongly against the former ; so that the word 
real, as Taylor has introduced it, is unmeaning or worse ; 
inasmuch as for the elements to be really changed into 
the body and blood of Christ, is the very thing for which 
the Romanists plead, and which is at complete variance 
with Taylor's previous statement, as well as with all his 
subsequent arguments. 

Still, it may be urged, the doctrine of Taylor is real- 
ly the doctrine of the reformed churches ; as, where the 
Church of England teaches, that " the body and blood of 
Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the 
faithful in the Lord's supper." And where Calvin main- 
tains, that, " in the supper, Jesus Christ (viz. his body 
and blood,) is truly and indeed given under the signs of 
bread and wine." 

But neither of these expressions favour the reality of 
the presence, though both explicitly set forth the efficacy 
of the symbols. These are very different assertions, and, 
in common life, a distinction is continually made between 
them. An estate is conveyed by the delivery of the title- 
22* 



254 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

deeds, a kingdom by the imposition of a crown. The 
enjoyment and possession both of the one and the other 
become, from that time, real and actual, though the estate 
may be in Cumberland, while the transaction of exchange 
or purchase takes place in London ; and, though, unques- 
tionably, the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland are 
not really within that golden circle which is the pledge 
and sign of sovereignty. What, indeed, is the meaning 
of any thing being present under its symbols or represen- 
tations, unless it be that the thing itself is not there, but 
that there is something else which supplies its place «> Or, 
what but this can be the meaning of the spiritu- 
al presence of a substance} Tt is plain, then, that our re- 
formers, in denying the bodily change of the elements, 
admitted no real change in them at all ; though they did 
not fail to recognise the presence of a Divine Power, 
which communicated to those who partook in them faith- 
fully, a share in the sacrifice, and an union with the mys- 
tical body, of the Lamb slain on Calvary. 

But, though he has thus encumbered his proposition 
with unnecessary difficulties, and expressed it in terms 
which hardly express the meaning of those whom he de- 
fends ; yet the proposition itself, that Christ's body is no 
otherwise than spiritually present in the sacrament, he 
has established in his following sections, with great acute- 
ness and learning. 

He begins by proving that the doctrine of transubstantia- 
tion is not found in Scripture : first, by the admission of 
some of the most celebrated doctors of the Romish church ; 
secondly, by a critical examination of the two principal 
passages which are usually urged in its behalf, — the 6th 
chapter of St. John, and the words in which our Saviour 
instituted the sacraments. 

On the first of these he has, perhaps, gone too far, in 
denying that it relates to the sacrament at all, or to any 
thing but Christ's doctrine, and the faith which lays hold 
on it. This is contrary to the general opinion of the 
church ; and it is strange that, if Christ had not, in this 
instance also, intended to allude to the eucharist, he 
should afterwards, when speaking of another thing, de- 
scribe it in words not merely like, but identical. 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 255 

Taylor, indeed, urges, that if the eucharist were inten- 
ded, it would follow that no man could be saved without 
partaking in it ; and therefore that infants, fools, and per- 
sons who are impeded by restraint or distance, must all 
necessarily perish. But this argument is worth little, 
since it would only put the one sacrament on the same 
footing with the other, as being, in subjecto capaci, the 
ordinary means of grace and salvation, without necessa- 
rily inferring that they who have not the means of ob- 
taining are to perish, any more than the penitent thief 
perished for want of baptism. No man is bound to an 
impossibility ; but a neglect of the appointed means, when 
in our power, may be damnable in the one case as well 
as in the other. And this is all which necessarily follows 
from the supposition that Christ intended the sacrament, 
when he said, " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of 
man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." 

He is more successful, however, when he goes on to 
observe, that, supposing it to refer to the sacrament, it is 
plain that the eating and drinking here spoken of must not 
be material, but spiritual ; first, because the men of Ca- 
pernaum were reproved for understanding his expressions 
in their gross and literal sense ; secondly, because, who- 
ever eats Christ's flesh hath eternal life. But this must 
be meant of a spiritual eating, and one which is effected by 
faith alone ; since, if the eating were bodily, and the ele- 
ments, as the Romanists pretend, were changed in sub- 
stance, the wicked might eat Christ as well as the wor- 
thy communicant. But, again, what Christ calls his 
body, he also calls bread, (ver. 51, 58 ;) if, therefore, the 
words are taken literally, they may prove consubstantia- 
tion, but not transubstantiation, since the last implies a 
total change of the element. And consubstantiation even 
the Romanists allow to be impossible. 

The argument drawn from the words of institution he 
invalidates with equal success. In the first place, he ob- 
serves, that, out of the whole sentence, " Take, eat, this 
is my body," &c. the church of Rome separates, " Hoc 
est corpus meurn," and says, that " these words, pronounc- 
ed by the priest with due intention, do effect the change 



226 LIFE OP JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

of the bread into Christ's body." — "But, by what argu- 
ment can it be proved that these words, < take and eat/ 
are not as effective of the change as ' Hoc est corpus 
meum V If they be, then the taking and eating do conse- 
crate, and it is not Christ's body till it is taken and eaten ; 
and then, when that is done, it is so no more ; and, be- 
sides that reservation, circumgestation, adoration, eleva- 
tion of it, must of themselves fall to the ground, it will 
also follow, that it is Christ's body only in a mystical, 
spiritual, and sacramental manner. That Christ used 
these words is true, and so he used all the other ; but did 
not tell which were the consecrating words, nor appoint 
them to use these words, but to do the thing, and so to 
remember and represent his death." 

St. Basil, he goes on to urge, affirms that the form of 
the consecration of the eucharist is not delivered to us ; 
and St. Gregory teaches, that " the apostles consecrated 
the eucharist only by saying the Lord's Prayer ; and, 
above all, it is apparent, that the apostles did not suppose 
these words to be of so vital importance to the efficacy of 
the sacrament, as the Church of Rome maintains, since 
the evangelists and St Paul write these very expressions 
differently. 

But, if the Roman Catholics make use of these words 
in a proper, not in a figurative sense, then it is a declara- 
tion of something already in being, and not effective of 
any thing after it. " Est" is " is," not " shall be ;" but 
" by the confession of the Roman doctors, the bread is 
not transubstantiated till the urn in meum be quite out." 
— " They affirm, that it is made Christ's body, by saying 
it is Christ's body ; but their saying so must suppose the 
thing done, or else their saying so is false ; and, if it be 
done before,then,to say it, does not do it at all, because it is 
done already." The thing is simple, if the words are re- 
garded as declaratory only of the designation of the ele- 
ments ; but, if a change is to be operated, at what time 
does this change begin ; and how, when it is, at most, 
only inchoate, can we speak of it as completed ? 

But, what is stronger and more to the purpose than all 
this ingenious fencing with the Romanists at their own 
weapons, he reminds us that, as the eucharist itself was, 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D 257 

in the external and ritual part, an imitation of a sacramen- 
tal custom already in use among the Jews ; so also were 
the very words which Christ spoke an imitation of the 
words which were used in that ancient ceremony. The 
Jews said, " This is the bread of sorrow which our fathers 
ate in Egypt. 5 ' — "This is the passover ;" — and this pass- 
over was called the body of the Paschal Lamb ; nay, it 
was called the body of our Saviour himself." — " So that 
here the words were made ready for Christ, and made 
his by appropriation." — " He is the true passover, which 
he then affirming, called that which was the antitype of 
the passover, the c body, of the true passover, to wit, in 
the same sacramental sense in which the like words were 
affirmed in the Mosaical passover." 

But, as an additional reason to make us conclude that 
Christ called the bread his body in a figurative sense, he 
urges that, in the language which he spoke, there is no 
word which can express " significat ;" they use the word 
"is" — "The Hebrews and the Syrians always join the 
names of the signs with the thing signified ; and, since 
the very essence of a sign is to signify, it is not an improp- 
er elegancy, in those languages, to use est for signi/icat ." 
In the New Testament, the same manner of speaking is 
retained, as he proves from "the field is the world," — 
" I am the door," " My Father is the husbandman," 
" the candlesticks are the churches," &c. 

It is reasonable, therefore, to believe that Christ spoke 
on this occasion as he spoke on others ; more particularly 
since the very institution of the sacrament is, in itself, re- 
presentative, significant, and commemorative, (according 
both to St. Paul and our Saviour himself,) of the death 
and sufferings of the latter. 

And, that all sacraments and transactions of the kind 
were, in ancient days, accompanied with figurative and 
significant words and actions, he proves by the fact, that 
fivuxBOLov is the word used by the Greeks to express our 
word sacrament ; that in Exodus, the paschal lamb is 
called " the passover," that is, the passing of the angel 
over the houses of Israel ; and, that this instance is so 
much the more apposite, because it is the forerunner of 



258 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

the blessed eucharist, which succeeded that, as baptism 
did circumcision. — In this manner six sections are occu- 
pied. 

In the seventh section, he establishes the same figura- 
tive explication of the words, from the manner and cir- 
cumstances of the institution, from the fact that, before 
his passion, his body was not really broken nor his blood 
shed : so that the broken bread and the wine poured out 
must have been his body, not truly but figuratively ; from 
the presumption that it cannot be imagined that the apos- 
tles understood it in the literal sense, when they saw his 
body stand by, unbroken, alive, integral, hypostatical ; and 
that, as the words of institution show that it was designed 
to represent his death, which was then future, it could not 
be necessary or useful to introduce on such an occasion 
his reaZbody ; since, if this had been the case, the shadow 
would have become the substance, and the sacrifice of 
Christ for the sins of the world would have taken place 
before his sufferings on Mount Calvary. 

What follows is admirably clear and rational : — 

" It is but an imperfect conception of the mystery to 
say, that it is the sacrament of Christ's body only, or his 
blood, but it is " ex parte rei," a sacrament of the death 
of his body, and to us a participation or exhibition of it 
as it became beneficial to us; that is, as it was crucified, 
as it was our sacrifice. And this is so wholly agreeable 
to the nature of the thing, and the order of the words, and 
the body of the circumstances, that it is next to that 
which is evident in itself, and needs no further light but 
the considering the words, and the design of the institu- 
tion : especially, since it is consonant to the style of Scrip- 
ture in the sacrament of the passover, and very many 
other instances. It wholly explicates the nature of the 
mystery, it reconciles our duty wfth the secret, it is free 
of all inconveniences, it prejudices no right, nor hinders 
any real effect it hath or can have : and it makes the 
mystery intelligible and prudent, fit to be discoursed of 
and inserted into the rituals of a wise religion." 

In the 8th and 9th sections, he discusses the arguments 
advanced from Scripture in favour of transubstantiation, 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 259 

and adduces many Scriptural arguments for the opposite 
side, In the 10th he shows, at considerable length, the 
absurdity of believing any thing which is in direct oppo- 
sition to the senses. 

This is one of the most curious and able parts of the 
treatise, in which he discusses many important questions, 
of God's power ; of the distinction between things which 
may be the proper subject of a miracle, and things natu- 
rally imposssible ; of the different properties of body and 
of spirit : of the distinction between a belief in transub- 
stantiation and in the Holy Trinity, of the remarkable 
circumstances under which Christ appeared to the apos- 
tles after his resurrection ; of the impossibility of conceiv- 
ing an accident in a state of separation from its sub- 
stance, and of the absurd and even blasphemous conse- 
quences which result from representing the body of Christ 
as contained under the accident of bread and wine. — The 
whole is a treasury of sound logical argument and acute 
criticism ; but it would be difficult to find any particular 
specimen which would not be too long for selection. 

The 12th section is employed in shewing the compar- 
atively recent introduction of the doctrine in question in- 
to the church, and that it was unknown, or, at least, not 
received by the most considerable of the fathers. In dis- 
cussing the sentiments of some of these, he had, certain- 
ly, expressions to encounter which might have perplexed 
an ordinary controversialist ; but Taylor's knowledge of 
their writings and their peculiar style was so extensive, 
that he was able to distinguish, with remarkable acute- 
ness, between assertions which really apply to the point 
in question and those which are equally reconcileable with 
either hypothesis, — those which prove too much, or those 
which only seem to tell against the Protestants, through 
an ignorance of the hyperbolical language usual with the 
writers of those ages. 

To these alledged testimonies, he opposes many oth- 
ers, — from Tertullian, Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, 
Cyprian, Eusebius, Ephren Syrus, Epiphanius, Macarius, 
Gregory of Nazianzum, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Theo- 
doret, Augustine, and Gelasius. 



260 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

He very sensibly remarks, that, as his object is to prove 
a negative, and to show that the doctrine of transubstan- 
tiation was not the universal or catholic doctrine of the 
church, it was not necessary for him to produce a gene- 
ral consent, or even a majority of the ancient writers ; 
since, if even a smaller number of the oldest and most 
considerable dissented, it is plain that the doctrine which 
he opposed could not answer to the rule of Vincentius 
Lirinesis, " Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omni- 
bus." He also observes, that, though rhetorical exag- 
geration, hyperbolical expressions of love and reverence, 
and other causes of the same kind, may have led the 
fathers to use many phrases stronger than their sober 
opinion warranted, on the side of the Romish doctors ; 
yet, in opposition to the hypothesis of a real bodily pres- 
ence, they would never have spoken that which they did 
not seriously believe and intend to maintain ; inasmuch 
as it could never be their object to undervalue or di- 
minish from the intrinsic dignity of the holy sacrament. 

He remarks, that so far was transubstantiation from be- 
ing a Catholic doctrine, that it was fiercely disputed 
among Catholics in the time of Charles the Bald ; when 
the contrary was maintained by Rabanus, Bertram, and, 
above all, by the illustrious scholar Duns Scotus. In 
England, much later, the same opinion might be held un- 
blamed ; and even the Lateran Council pronounced noth- 
ing against it ; though, thirty-six years after, in 1251, a 
council of only fifty-four prelates, held at Rome, thought 
fit to declare the real presence an article of faith. Ste- 
phen, bishop of Augustodunum, in 1100, first invented 
the word " transubstantiation." — " He christened the 
article and gave the name, and this congregation confirm- 
ed it." 

In the thirteenth and concluding section, he examines 
the practical part of the dispute, and demonstrates, 
against the Romanists, the danger of paying divine hon- 
our to that which, even on their own principles, (through 
many circumstances of secret imperfection in the words 
spoken, the intention, or the personal character of the 
minister,) may be no more than bread, and which no good 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 261 

or sufficient argument has been advanced to prove that it 
can be God. 

He relates, on the authority of Bishop Andrews, a re- 
markable instance in which the Jesuits, who were to die 
for the Gunpowder Treason, refused to stake their salva- 
tion on their assurance that the bread and wine were the 
very body and blood which had been sacrificed for their 
sins ; and when Garnet replied, that though the general 
doctrine was certain, a man might well doubt of the par- 
ticular instance. And he urges, that u as we must pray 
w r ith faith and without doubting, so it is fit we should 
worship ; and yet, in this case, and upon these premises, 
no man can choose but death, and therefore, he ought 
not to worship: c Quod dubitas nefeceris.' " 

He concludes with an eloquent picture of the scandal 
thus given to Jews and Turks, and the ill effects of the 
example on heathen idolaters. 

The style of this essay, as well as of those which fol- 
low it, is easy, clear, flowing, and vigorous, with less of 
his characteristic eloquence than some of those produc- 
tions which I have already noticed, but extremely well 
calculated to sustain attention, and to carry his reader 
without fatigue through an intricate and lengthened argu- 
ment. There are, however, some instances of eloquence 
as well as power, and there are several in which he has in- 
dulged in a tone of sarcastic humour, which seems to show 
that his talent for satire might have been (had he chosen 
to employ it) as considerable as any of his other powers 
of composition. Such a passage occurs in his dedication, 
where he observes that, because the doctrines of the Ro- 
mish church "met with opponents at all hands, they pro- 
ceeded to a more vigorous way of arguing : they armed 
legions against their adversaries ; they confuted at one 
time in the dow r n of Beziers, sixty thousand persons ; 
and, in one battle, disputed so prosperously and acutely, 
that they killed about ten thousand men that were sacra- 
mentaries. And this Bellarmine gives as an instance of 
the works of his church ; this way of arguing was used 
in almost all the countries of Christendom, till, by crusa- 
does, massacres and battles, burnings, and the constant 
23 



262 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

carnificia and butchery of the inquisition, (which is the 
main proof of the papacy, and does more than < Tu es 
Petrus/) they prevailed far and near, and men durst not 
oppose the evidence on which they fought !" Such in- 
dignant satire was not ill employed on the sanguinary fol- 
lies of popery. But of this kind of talent more instan- 
ces are to be found in his two succeeding essays. 

The former of these was,asl have already had occasion to 
notice, — a task imposed on him by the bishops of the Irish 
church, and elicited, in a great degree, by the gross and 
prevalent superstitions of the Irish populace, it is, how- 
ever, not a work addressed to that populace ; indeed, 
from some expressions in his preface, he seems to have 
early despaired of its rendering such persons any immedi- 
ate service. It is addressed, throughout, to the Irish cler- 
gy, and the educated part of the Irish laity ; nor am I 
aware of any work (out of the many which have appear- 
ed, and, in their time, done good service to the cause of 
Protestantism,) so well calculated to answer its object, or 
to excite, in the mind of a well-informed Paptist, a con- 
viction of the necessity of reformation in his own church, 
and a belief that this necessary work has been competent- 
ly effected in ours. 

The style is never oratorical, seldom even eloquent in 
that sense and character of eloquence which a person, 
who has formed his notions of Jeremy Taylor from his 
sermons and devotional works, would anticipate. But it 
is easy, buoyant, and elastic, effectually removed from 
the opposite evils of languor or inflation, or that tedious- 
ness which is the immediate consequence of both. The 
English is throughly good, natural, and unaffected ; with 
some considerable admixture, indeed, of schoolastic terms ; 
but these, for a reason which will be shortly given, entire- 
ly appropriate to his subject and his readers. The tone 
of his controversy is simple, friendly, and affectionate ; 
it is such as a Christian bishop may well hold towards the 
people of his charge ; and he, throughout, abstains, with 
Christian care, from imputing to the individuals of the 
party opposed to him a concurrence in, or even a knowl- 
edge of, the odious consequences which he frequently de- 






LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 263 

duces from their opinions. Against penal courses of ev- 
ery kind he, in his preface, speaks with the same abhor- 
ence as when he wrote his " Liberty of Prophesying ;" 
and the spirit of his treatise is the mild and ingratiating 
spirit of an apology for differing from the Romanists, rath- 
er than of a formal attack on their principles. Even his 
satire (of which formidable weapon he makes abundant 
and able use,) is conveyed under the form of " banter," 
rather than of scoff or insult. Without flattering their prej- 
udices, without even sparing them, he talks to his adver- 
saries as if they were already his friends, or one day to 
become so. And, above all, he talks to them as a Ro- 
manist ; he addresses them with a perfect knowledge of 
their writers, — their ecclesiastical history, — their school- 
men, — their traditions, and their prejudices ; a perfect fa- 
miliarity with both their strong and their weak grounds ; 
a power and habit of appealing to their own writers as his 
best and most frequent authorities, and a dexterity which 
has never been exceeded in opposing the contradictions 
of those writers to each other, laying bare their fallacies, 
and gently but not insolently exciting indignation against 
their corruptions, and a smile against their absurdities. 

To confirm Protestants in their religion, it may or it 
may not have power. It presupposes a familiarity with 
Romish writers which Protestants who are tempted to 
change their religion for a worse, are generally, as I ap- 
prehend, impelled to do so by some single, broad and 
powerful, though mistaken principle or feeling, which is 
too concentrated and too closely intrenched in some pe- 
culiarity of habit or intellect, to give way to such a war 
of detail as is carried on by Taylor. 

But to shake the former opinions of an intelligent Ro- 
man Catholic, and to conciliate him for the reception of 
new ; — to detach him from an implicit confidence in his 
ancient guides, without inclining him, at the same time, 
to a sceptical aversion from all guides whatever ; — to point 
out the contradictions of a false religion, without making 
all religion appear ridiculous, — 1 know no work which has 
greater power than the " Dissuasive" of Taylor; except 
that which, in many respects, it greatly resembles, the 



264 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D . D. 

"Lettres Provinciates " of Pascal. As a composition, 
these last, perhaps, have the superiority, in dramatic ef- 
fect, from the lively and eloquent dialogue in which the 
first part is conveyed, and which is, in some degree, car- 
ried on by the tone and spirit of the following letters. 
But it is of more importance to observe, in an estimate of 
the merits of two authors, that all the arguments, the in- 
stances, the examples, the " badinage" of Taylor, are ur- 
ged for the sake of a definite and calculated end ; while 
Pascal's exposition of the morals of the Jesuits and the 
politics of the court of Rome, conduct to consequences 
which the author was not prepared to adopt, and from 
which he would have shrunk back in horror. 

The " Dissuasive" is divided into three chapters ; the 
first devoted to the exposure of the different innovations 
which the church and court of Rome have introduced in- 
to the faith and devotions, and ecclesiastical government 
of Christians. In this he shows that the power of impo- 
sing new articles of belief is, in itself, a comparatively 
modern usurpation ; that the same charge of novelty and 
departure from apostolic and primitive authority may be 
brought against indulgences, purgatory, transubstantiation 
and half-communion ; the injunction of puplic prayers in 
a foreign or obsolete language ; the veneration of images; 
the pictures of God ; the papal supremacy, the invoca- 
tion of saints ; and the supposed insufficiency of Scrip- 
ture without tradition. 

On all these subjects he evinces a knowledge not only 
of the fathers, but the schoolmen, the divines of the mid- 
dle ages, and the modern Romish disputants ; which few 
of his antagonists could equal, and, perhaps, still fewer 
Protestants could have supplied. 

Against the alleged power of the church to dictate an 
article of faith, he urges the words of St. Paul, (Gal. i 8.) 
the sentence of the third general council, held at Ephe- 
sus, and the notorious abuses of this power by the Romish 
church, who have determined points of history in oppo- 
sition to knovvn authorities, and continually, though grad- 
ually, added to the ancient staple of orthodoxy. 

Against the antiquity of indulgences he brings the tes- 



d.d. 265 

timony of many of their own writers, and fixes their com- 
mencement either in the 12th or the beginning of the 
13th century. He urges the perfect silence of all antiq- 
uity on the subject, and that, in their origin, they were 
no abatement of any supposed sufferings in purgatory, 
but a simple absolution from some part of that penance 
which the confessor had imposed on his living penitent. 
And though indulgences were, in the time of the fathers, 
unknown, and no definite censure of them is, therefore, to 
be looked for in their writings, yet there are in those writ- 
ings, as well as in Scripture, very many passages destruc- 
tive of the principle on which indulgences rest ; as where 
the greatest saints are enjoined to regard themselves as 
unprofitable servants ; where we are taught that repent- 
ance merely consists in a return to a good life and a sound 
and active faith ; and, more particularly, where we find, 
as in St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Chrysostom, St. Au- 
gustine, and St. Bernard, the custom discommended of 
going to seek pardon of sins by pilgrimage. 

The same subject he pursues when discussing the ques- 
tion of purgatory, which doctrine he judiciously distin- 
guishes from the really ancient doctrine or practice of 
prayer for the dead, and of which he proves the origin to 
reach no further back than the eleventh century after 
Christ, and then to have been held as no article of faith, 
but merely a speculative opinion. He proves its dero- 
gation from the merits of the blood of Christ, and instanc- 
es the folly of those legends on the credit of which the 
notion first gained ground among mankind. The other 
instances contained in the first chapter he follows up with 
the same critical acumen, and concludes with the obser- 
vation, that the Romanists " have taught every priest that 
can scarce understand his breviary, (of which, in Ireland, 
there are but too many,) and many of the people, to ask, 
6 where our religion was before Luther ?' Whereas it ap- 
pears by the premises, that it is much more easy for us 
to show our religion before Luther, than for them to show 
theirs before Trent. And although they can show too 
much practice of their religion in the degenerate ages of 
the church, yet we can and do clearly show ours in the 
purest and first ages ; and can and do draw lines, point- 
23* 



266 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR) D. D* 

ing to the times and places where the several rooms and 
stones of their Babel were builded, and where polished, 
and where furnished. 

a But when the keepers of the field slept, and the en- 
emy had sown tares, and they had choked the wheat and 
almost destroyed it; when the world complained of the 
infinite errors in the church, and being oppressed by a 
violent power, durst not complain so much as they had 
cause : and, when they who had cause to complain, were 
yet themselves very much abused, and did not complain 
in all they might; when divers excellent persons, when 
almost all Christian princes did complain heavily of the 
corrupt state of the church and of religion, and no remedy 
could be had, but the very intended remedy" [the gene- 
ral council,] " made things much worse, then it was that 
divers Christian kingdoms, and particularly the Church 
of England — 

(' Turn primum, senio docilis, tua ssecula, Roma. 
Erubuit ; pudet cxacti jam temporis, odit 
Prateritos fcedis cum religionibus annos !') 

being ashamed of the errors, superstitions, heresies, and 
impieties, which had deturpated the face of the church, 
looked in the glass of Scripture and pure antiquity ; and 
washed a*vay those stains with which time, and inadver- 
tency, and tyranny, had besmeared her ; and being thus 
cleansed and washed, is accused by the Roman parties of 
novelty, and condemned, because she refuses to run into 
the same excess of riot and deordination. But we can- 
not deserve blame, who return to our ancient and first 
health, by preferring a new cure before an old sore." 

The second chapter relates to those doctrines and prac- 
tices of the Roman church, which " in themselves, or in 
their true and immediate consequences, direct impieties 
and give warranty to a wicked life." 

In this part of his work, after exposing the danger of 
the Romish doctrines as to the legality of delaying re- 
pentance ; proving the inefficacy of what they call attri- 
tion, and the defective estimate which they make of that 
contrition which only can find favour with God ; pointing 



267 

out the practical mischief resulting from confession, pen- 
ance, and satisfaction, as now used by them ; and cross- 
examining and comparing the various and contradictory 
requisites which, even according to the estimate of their 
own doctors, are necessary to make indulgencies availa- 
ble ; he goes on to discuss their erroneous distinctions be- 
tween mortal and venial sins ; and their fancy that the 
opinion of one grave doctor is enough to make a matter 
of faith or duty " probable/' 

He here instances many of the abominable practical te- 
nets which have, on this pretence, been received, or, at 
least, tolerated ; the cases in Toletanus, noticed by Pas- 
cal, that, " if a nobleman be set upon and may escape by 
going away, he is not tied to it, but may kill him that in- 
tends to strike him with a stick," — " that mortal sins be- 
come venial when done in the violence of passion or 
drunkenness ;" — that " it is lawful for a man to expose 
his bastards to the hospital, to conceal his own shame ; 55 
— that "if one of a married couple falls into heresy, the 
marriage is dissolved, and the other may marry another; 55 
with many similar circumstances of horror and absurdity. 

Nor can it be pleaded, he observes, in any of these cases, 
that such an opinion is but the private opinion of one or 
more of their doctors. This would, indeed, in an article 
of faith, be an insufficient proof of the opinion of the 
church in general ; but as a rule of life, and in questions 
between virtue and vice, it is their own avowed and gen- 
eral principle, that "a private opinion of any one grave 
doctor may be safely followed, or of the example of good 
men. 5 ' Accordingly, he observes, " if an evil custom 
get amongst men, that very custom shall legitimate the 
action, and Christ is not your rule, but the examples of 
them that live with you, or are in your eye and observa- 
tion.' 5 Those who shall compare these sections with the 
corresponding passages in the "Lettres Provinciales, 55 
will receive no small share both of amusement and advan- 
tage; but they will see little reason to postpone the gen- 
ius of Taylor to that of the learned and witty Frenchman, 
In piety, it is useless and unnecessary to compare such 
men as they were, the daily conversation of each of 



268 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

whom was elevated above the world, and who have long 
since met in peace and happiness amid the quiet shades 
of paradise. 

The following sections are taken up with discussing the 
foreign or obsolete language of the Romish prayers, ^the 
idolatrous nature of many of them, the strange impiety of 
their system of exorcism ; (where he goes over much of 
the same ground with Reginald Scott, in his " Discovery 
of Witchcraft ;") their confidence in observances merely 
superstitious and unauthorized ; their reliance on the 
" opus operatum" of the sacraments, so as to make them 
not the "instrument," but "the suppletory of virtue;" 
their direct idolatry in honouring the cross and certain 
images, even with " latria," or the highest degree of wor- 
ship which can be paid to the Deity. And he winds up 
all by observing, that " although we do not doubt, but that 
the goodness of God does so prevail over all the follies 
and malice of mankind, that there are in the Roman com- 
munion many very good Christians, yet they are not such 
as they are Papists, but by something that is higher and 
before that, something that is of an abstract or more sub- 
lime consideration. And, though the good people 
amongst them are what they are by the grace and good- 
ness of God, yet by all or any of these opinions they 
are not so ; but the very best suffer diminution and alloy 
by these things ; and very many are wholly subverted 
and destroyed. 

In the last chapter he returns again to the casuistry of 
the church of Rome, and the immoral tendency of many 
of her doctrines, more particularly those which teach that 
the pope may, under certain circumstances, and to ob- 
tain a greater good, dispense with even lawful oaths, and 
the most solemn and innocent engagements. He urges 
also the exemption pleaded by their clergy from the tem- 
poral power ; and the extravagant notion of the right of 
popes to excommunicate, depose, and even condemn to 
death, heretical princes. In these observations, howev- 
er, I am not aware that there is any thing worth particu- 
lar notice. Enough may have been already said to prove 
the work of which I am speaking, to be, for its length, 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 269 

one of the fullest and ablest expositions of the errors of 
popery, and to place Jeremy Taylor on as high an eleva- 
tion among controversial as among devotional and prac- 
tical writers. 

The second part of the " Dissuasive from Popery" was 
written in vindication of the former from the attacks of 
two priests, White and Serjeant, the latter of whom, 
more particularly, he severely chastises in the Introduc- 
tion, for the slighting manner in which he had spoken of 
Scripture, and the absurd and illogical character of many 
of his objections. In the same place, he discusses, at 
considerable length and with much acuteness, the nature 
and real value of tradition, and he exposes the Romish 
notion of the infallibility of the fathers, laying down some 
admirable rules for the manner in which their authority 
may be used in the interpretation of Scripture, and in as- 
certaining the sense of the church at the times in which 
they respectively flourished. He concludes, that Mr. 
Serjeant and his party were, in truth, the men that went 
on no adequate grounds : that "in the Church of Rome 
there is no -sure footing/ no certain acknowledged rule 
of faith ; but, while they call for an assent above the 
nature and necessity of the thing, they have no warrant 
beyond the greatest uncertainty." 

The work itself is divided into two books, each contain- 
ing several sections. In the first he treats of the mean- 
ing of the term " church," under which he includes not 
the clergy only, nor a small part of them, but the great 
body of believers. He shows, that even those assem- 
blies, which, under the name of " general councils," have 
passed for representatives of the church, w T ere, in an- 
cient times, composed not of bishops only, but other em- 
inent clergymen, and, not unfrequently, of laymen ; and 
he examines, in a very free tone, and one which, in 
many instances, reminds us of the better parts of Jortin, 
the slight claims which most of those councils have had 
to pass for oecumenical; the variable and capricious dis- 
tinctions which the church of Rome has made in the 
different degrees of authority which she ascribes to dif- 
ferent councils, and the vague, and, in some cases, im- 



270 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

possible tests which she proposes of their validity. He 
then proceeds to the decisions of the popes, proving from 
the innumerable contradictions of those briefs themselves, 
from the impossibility, which their own canonists mutual- 
ly allow, of knowing which is the true pope, when there 
are different pretenders to the see ; or whether he that is 
acknowledged pope may not have vitiated his election by 
simony, heresy ; or, as in the case of Constantine the 
Second, defect of holy orders, how hard it may be for a 
Roman Catholic, even on the received principles of his 
faith, to determine whether he is in the church or no, or 
what head he ought to follow. And, after examining 
and exposing, in a striking peroration, the fifteen marks 
of the true church proposed by Bellarmine, he concludes 
with exhorting them to demonstrate their church, if they 
can, " in the prescript of the law, of the prophets, of the 
Psalms, of the evangelists, and all the canonical author- 
ities of the holy books." 

Having thus shown the utter insufficiency of the guides 
relied on by the Romish church, he now proceeds to 
show, in his second chapter, the sufficiency of the sacred 
volume as a guide to salvation. 

To prove that the Scriptures are the only rule of faith 
acknowledged by antiquity, he pleads the testimonies of 
almost all the most considerable ecclesiastical writers, and 
the very name of canon or " rule," which the universal 
church has given to the Bible. " The word itself," he 
observes, " ends this enquiry ; for it cannot be a canon, 
if any thing be put to it or taken from it, said St. Basil, 
St. Chrysostom, and Varinus." 

The pretence of the difficulty of the Scriptures, which 
the Romanists have always urged, and which some 
Protestants, to answer a temporary purpose, have, some- 
times, too largely asserted, — he answers by the declara- 
tions of Cyril, Chrysostom, Clemens Alexandrinus, 
Athanasius, and Augustine ; confining the dvavorjia to 
such points alone as are not necessary to salvation ; sta- 
ting the rule of antiquity that Scripture is to be expound- 
ed by Scripture ; and that, though God has given other 
helps in the appointment and preservation of an order of 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR D.D. 271 

men as guides of souls, yet these last are bound to draw 
all their doctrines from this single and sacred fountain. 
A very interesting and amusing chapter on " Traditions 57 
follows, in which he proves that no necessary article of 
faith depends on tradition alone ; except it be that which 
is, in the first instance, necessary to the reception of the 
Scriptures themselves, the tradition that they are the 
word of God, and a sufficient guide to heaven. 

Of the particulars which Cardinal Perron, and others, 
have pretended to rest on tradition only, he shows that 
(1.) the Trinity may be proved from Scripture, and was 
so proved at the Nicene council. That (2.) for the bap- 
tism of infants there is, at least, a strong presumption 
from the words and analogy of Scripture ; and that, after 
all, as he seems to account it, it is hardly an essential of 
salvation. The validity of the baptism of heretics, 
which is instanced (3.) could never, he says, have been 
doubted, if men had duly weighed the commission which 
Christ gave to all ministers of his religion. (4.) The 
procession of the Holy Ghost both from the Father and 
the Son, he treats with little ceremony, as an obscure 
and doubtful question, which cannot be esteemed a 
necessarv article of faith, without damning all the eastern 
churches ; — but which may, nevertheless, be probably 
shown from the sacred writings. (5.) The observation 
of the Lord's day he denies to be an article of faith, or 
essentially necessary doctrine ; regarding it as a matter 
of discipline and external rite, and so far from being a 
successor or substitute for the Jewish sabbath, (which 
was done away with entirely in the abolition of the 
Mosaic law,) that both days were, at first, kept by the 
Christians with equal reverence ; yet " both with liber- 
ty, but with intuition to the avoiding offences, and the 
interests of religion." — He observes, however, it maybe 
abundantly proved from Scripture, that there should be 
some time sanctified and set apart for the service of God; 
and " that the circumstances of religion are in the power 
of the presidents of religion ; and then it will follow 
from Scripture, that the apostles, or their successors, or 
whoever did appoint the Sunday festival, had not only 
great reason but full authority. 



272 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

He then proceeds to give many instances of alleged 
traditions of contradictory import, — of inherent absurdi- 
ty, and of dates notoriously modern. He lays down, as 
a proper criterion in all such controversies, the well- 
known canon of Vincentius Lirinensis ; and, by the ap- 
plication of this rule, arrives at the consequence, that 
" all the doctrines of faith and good life are contained in 
the plain places of Scripture ; and besides it there are, 
and there can be, no articles of faith." 

The same topic he discusses in the two following chap- 
ters, to nearly the same effect, and employing nearly the 
same arguments as he had done in his " Liberty of Proph- 
esying ;" establishing the Apostles' Creed as the only 
necessary rule of belief and exposing, with considerable 
energy, the monstrous power assumed by the court of 
Rome, of introducing into the confessions of the church 
new articles of faith, and altering and suppressing the 
Catholic doctrine. That they claim and exert such a 
power he proves by the writings of their own doctors ; — 
by the alterations which they have notoriously introdu- 
ced in the practice and professions of the ancient 
church ; — by the frauds and pretended miracles to which 
they have recurred in order to establish such novelties ; 
frauds which have been, in many instances, acknowledged, 
with shame, by their own ablest partizans ; and miracles 
which, by the common testimony of Scripture and the 
ancient fathers, however pretended, ought to be of no 
force to establish a doctrine against Scripture and the 
consent of antiquity. In the sixth section he proceeds 
still further to make good his charge by a curious history 
of expurgatory indices ; and, in the seventh, he charges 
them, that " having done these things to propagate their 
new doctrines, and to suppress those which are more an- 
cient and catholic; they are so implacably angry at all 
that dissent from them, that they not only kill them, 
w T here they have pow T er, but damn them all, so far as 
their sentence can prevail." 

This is a very impressive and interesting chapter. He 
shows the unchristian spirit of such a procedure by the 
fact that God has reserved all judgment, to himself; 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 273 

that his mercy absolves many persons who, in his just 
judgment were condemned ; and that it becomes a Chris- 
tian to act, therefore, on the principle generally adopted 
by Protestants, and to judge no man's person, far less any 
states of men. 

" Besides these things," he proceeds, " there is a strange 
spring and secret principle in every man's understanding, 
that it is oftentimes turned about by such impulses of which 
no man can give any account. We all remember a most 
wonderful instance of it, in the disputation between the 
two Reynolds, John and William : the former of which 
being a Papist, and the latter a Protestant, met and dis- 
puted with a purpose to confute and to convert each oth- 
er, and so they did : for those arguments which were 
used prevailed fully against their adversary, and yet did 
not prevail w 7 ith themselves. The Papist turned Protest- 
ant, and the Protestant became a Papist, and so remain- 
ed to their dying day." " But, further yet, he [the 

consistent Protestant] considers the natural and regular 
infirmities of mankind : and God considers them much 
more. He knows that in man there is nothing admirable 
but his ignorance and his weakness ; his prejudices, and 
the infallible certainty of being deceived in many things ; 
he sees that wicked men oftentimes know much more 
than very good men ; and that the understanding is not 
of itself considerable in morality, and effects nothing in 
rewards and punishments : it is the will only that rules 
man, and can obey God. He sees, and deplores it, that 
many men study hard and understand little ; that they 
dispute earnestly, and understand not one another at all ; 
that affections creep in so certainly and mingle with their 
arguing, that the argument is lost, and nothing remains' but 
the conflict of two adversaries' affections ; that a man is 
so willing, so easy, so ready to believe w T hat makes for 
his opinion ; so hard to understand an argument against 
himself; that it is plain it is the principle within, not the 
argument without, that determines him. He observes 
also, that all the world, (a few individuals excepted,) are 
unalterably determined to the religion of their country, 
of their family, of their society ; that there is never any 

24 



274 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D, 

considerable change made, but what is made by war and 
empire, by fear and hope. He remembers, that it is a 
rare thing to see a Jesuit of the Dominican opinion, or a 
Dominican (until of late,) of the Jesuit ; but every or- 
der gives laws to the understanding of their novices, and 
they never change. He considers there is such ambigu- 
ity in words, by which all lawgivers express their mean- 
ing ; that there is such abstruseness in mysteries of relig- 
ion, that some things are so much too high for us, that we 
cannot understand them rightly; and yet they are so sa- 
cred and concerning, that men will think they are bound 
to look into them as far as they can ; that it is no won- 
der if they quickly go too far, where no understanding, if 
it were fitted for it, could go far enough ; but in these 
things it will be hard not to be deceived ; since our words 
cannot rightly express those things ; that there is such 
variety of human understandings, that men's faces differ 
not so much as their souls ; and that, if there w T ere not so 
much difficulty in things, yet they could not but be vari- 
ously apprehended by several men : and then, consider- 
ing that in twenty opinions, it may be, not one of them is 
true ;" — " and every man is too apt to overvalue his own 
opinion, — and as he loves those that think as he does, so 
he is ready to hate them that do not ; and then, secret- 
ly, from wishing evil to him, he is apt to believe that evil 
will come, and that it is just it should : and, by this time, 
the opinion is troublesome, and puts other men on their 
guard against it, and then, while passion reigns, and reas- 
on is modest and patient, and talks not loud like a storm,, 
victory is more regarded than truth, and men call God 
into the party ; and his judgments are used for arguments, 
and the threatenings of Scripture are snatched up in haste, 
and men throw c arrows, fire-brands, and death,' and by 
this time all the world is in an uproar. All this, and a 
thousand things more, the English Protestants consider- 
ing, deny not their communion to any Christian who de- 
sires it, and believes the Apostles' Creed, and is of the 
religion of the four first general councils ; they hope well 
of all that live well ; they receive into their bosom all 
true believers of what church soever ; and for them that 






LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 275 

err, they instruct them, and then leave them to their own 
liberty to stand or fall before their own master." 

Such were the latest opinions (for this, as I have al- 
ready elsewhere observed, was the latest work,) of the 
author of the " Liberty of Prophesying ;" and so far, I 
repeat, was he, when himself in possession of power and 
dignity, from renouncing or obscuring his own previous 
sentiments. 

Of the remaining sections of the work, a less exact 
account may be sufficient. 

In the ninth section he goes on to urge, that the Church 
of Rome " teaches as Doctrines the commandments of 
men ;" and in the tenth and eleventh, with which the 
first book concludes, he discusses the topic of auricular 
confession, at greater length, but to nearly the same pur- 
port with the language which he had held in his sermon 
on the Gunpowder Treason. — The second book, which 
is divided into seven sections, is occupied in making good, 
and extending the arguments employed in the first part 
of the " Dissuasive," — on the subject of Indulgences ; 
Purgatory ; Transubstantiation ; the Half Communion ; 
Service in an unknown Tongue ; the Worship of Ima- 
ges ; and Picturing God the Father and the Holy Trin- 
ity. — These subjects he may be almost said to have exhaus- 
ted. It is certain, at least, that he has accumulated on 
each a vast body of various and recondite information, 
applied to the point in question with great acuteness and 
good sense, and conveyed in very easy and spirited lan- 
guage. On the whole, though it is no more than natu- 
ral and reasonable, that essays which apply to the daily 
actions, and the necessary belief of all Christians, should 
be preferred, m the daily studies of the greater number, 
to those which have reference to subordinate distinctions, 
and lead us through the thorny mazes of controversy ; 
yet,as specimens of talent and acquirement, the two " Dis- 
suasives" are, I conceive, not inferior to any of his most 
popular productions ; and it is even possible that they 
will be read by many with less weariness, and a more sus- 
tained, though a different kind of pleasure, than the un- 
mingled and almost interminable wilderness of sweets, 



276 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

which characterizes his earlier and less argumentative 
writings. 

Nor are they only those immediately interested in the 
disputes between the Protestants and the Roman Catho- 
lics, who may find themselves amused and instructed by 
the manner in which Taylor discusses them, and derive 
abundant information, and rational entertainment, from 
the two parts of the Dissuasive. Whoever takes pleas- 
ure in the history of Christianity, and of the human 
mind ; in tracing the progress from small beginnings, of 
the most extensive and portentous changes ; in estima- 
ting the amount of those corruptions which, in the lapse 
of ages, and from various causes, have been introduced 
into doctrines and practices the most simple and sacred ; 
and in observing, nevertheless, even amid the greatest 
spread of those corruptions, how strangely the providence 
of God has raised up eminent persons to bear witness 
against them ; — will find the time very profitably and 
agreeably employed, which he bestows on Taylor's contro- 
versial writings. 

There is a trifling error in the beginning of his intro- 
duction in the second part, which would, in another per- 
son, have been hardly worth notice ; but which I should 
not have expected to meet with in one, who, like Tay- 
lor, had paid a more than common attention to the works 
of the Rabbins. 

" When our blessed Saviour," he tells us, " was cast- 
ing out the evil spirit from the poor demoniac in the Gos- 
pel, he asked his name, and he answered, c My name is 
Legion for we are many.' — Legion is a Roman word, 
and signifies an army, as Roman signifies Catholic," &c. 
It is singular that he had overlooked the fact, that " legion" 
among the Jews, was the name usually given to the indi- 
vidual who commanded a large body of soldiers, and an- 
swered, in fact, to " general," or " colonel." It was 
therefore properly assumed by the single spirit who spoke 
in the name of the rest, and exercised authority over them ; 
whereas, had it been used as a noun of multitude, it 
would have been, not " my name," but " ours." — The 
observation is of some use, in clearing up an expression 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 277 

of Scripture ; but Taylor's witticism will, in consequence, 
fall to the ground. 

In this Great Exemplar, while commenting on the sec- 
ond commandment, he ha'd said, " God forbade to the 
Jews the very having and making images and re present- 
ments, not only of the true God, or of false and imagina- 
ry deities, but of visible creatures." In the second part 
of the Dissuasive, he says, on the contrary, — " Neither 
the second commandment, nor the ancient fathers in their 
commentaries on them, did absolutely prohibit all making 
of images ; but all that were made for religious worship, 
and in order to adoration, according as it is expressed in 
him, who, among the Jews, collected the negative pre- 
cepts which Arias Montanus translated into Latin ; the 
second of which is, c signum cultus causa ne facito ;' the 
third, i simulachrum divinum nullo pacto conflato ;' the 
fourth, 'signa religiosa nulla ex materia facito. 5 " 

Of the two opinions, it is hardly necessary to observe, 
that the latter is shown, by the brazen serpent of Moses, 
and by the cherubim, oxen, and lions of Solomon, to be 
the ancient and true explication of the second command- 
ment. 

The letters to persons seduced or tempted to the 
Church of Rome, are not ill adapted to their object, but 
offer nothing which call for particular observation here. 
One which accompanies them, and stands second in the se- 
ries,to a lady converted from the Church of Rome to that of 
England, is, however, highly characteristic of its author, 
as endeavouring to recall the attention of his pupil from 
polemics, to practical religion and morality, and evincing 
that he had been chiefly anxious to make her a Protest- 
ant, in order that she might be more pure, more holy, 
more eminently Christian, in proportion as her mode of 
faith was rational and apostolical. 

The " Discourse of Confirmation/' is preceded by a 
dedication to the duke of Ormond, in which the author, 
after some lamentations over the dilapidated and divided 
state of the Irish church, advances, with apparent 
approbation, a whimsical fancy of " some wise and good 
men, " that, " when baptized Christians are confirmed 
24* 



278 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

and solemnly blessed by the bishop, then it is, that a spe- 
cial angel-guardian is appointed to keep their souls from 
the assaults of the spirits of darkness.'' — This solemn 
trifling (for, in our profound ignorance of the world of 
spirits, it is nothing more,) is not calculated to give a 
very advantageous impression of the work which it intro- 
duces ; and, in fact, I cannot consider it as a favourable 
specimen of his genius. 

In the introduction, however, is a passage of no com- 
mon eloquence, — where, while describing the assistance 
of the Holy Ghost, as supplied to Christians, he com- 
pares the new to the old creation, and describes the Spir- 
it as a second time " moving upon the face of the waters." 
— " By him we live, in him we walk, by his aids we pray, 
by his emotions we desire : we breath, and sigh, and 
groan, by him : he helps in all our infirmities, and he 
gives us all our strengths : he reveals mysteries to us, and 
teaches us all our duties : he stirs us up to holy desires, 
and he actuates those desires : he maketh us to will and 
to do of his good pleasure. 55 

The work itself consists of seven sections, in which he 
undertakes to prove, the divine institution of the rite of 
confirmation ; — its perpetuity ; — its practice by the prim- 
itive churches ; — its exclusive administration by bishops ; 
— its essential parts, which he defines to be prayer and im- 
position of hands ; — its blessed effects, and the preparation 
necessary for it. 

To show that confirmation is a divinely instituted rite, 
and to be proved from Scripture, he alleges, first, the de- 
scent of the Holy Ghost on our Lord, not during, but af- 
ter his baptism ; and secondly, the words of Christ to 
Nicodemus, declaring the necessity of baptism, " by wa- 
ter and the Spirit." 

Neither of these can, as I conceive, be esteemed con- 
clusive. The former is no more an example for Chris- 
tains, than any other of the long train of wonders and dis- 
plays of supernatural power, w T hich accompanied and es- 
tablished his divine mission, can be said to be examples 
to us. — If it proved any thing with respect to the man- 
ner of initiating new members into his mystical body, it 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 279 

would rather prove that the grace of the Holy Ghost was, 
without any further outward ceremony, to be a necessary 
consequence of baptism ; and this, in fact, is all which 
those expressions of the fathers can be fairly said to im- 
ply, which Taylor quotes as agreeing in his application 
of the miracle. 

The second is, at first sight, more plausible, since our 
Saviour is, throughout his discourse with Nicodemus, im- 
pressing on the mind of the Jewish elder, the necessity 
of an entrance into his religion, by the public and usual 
rites of initiation. But the fact that confirmation was 
really one of those rites, will remain to be proved; and, 
as regeneration by the Holy Ghost is on all hands allow- 
ed to be the consequences of baptism, by itself, and even 
where no confirmation is superadded, — the expression is 
more naturally understood, and has been, in fact, so un- 
derstood by the greater part of orthodox commentators, 
as merely declaratory of the spiritual benefits which were 
to follow the external rite of water. 

There is, indeed, a dangerous consequence attendant 
on both Taylor's arguments, that, by limiting the gift of 
the Holy Ghost to confirmation, he makes baptism, taken 
by itself, of none effect, or at most, of no further effect, 
than as a decent and necessary introduction to that which 
would be, on this hypothesis, the main and distinctive 
consignation of a Christian. To this objection Taylor 
himself was not insensible ; and he endeavours to escape 
from it, by a still more dangerous admission, that confir- 
mation is, really, as generally necessary as baptism or the 
Lord's Supper, which is, in fact, to contradict the express 
doctrine of our church, and formally to elevate it to the 
rank of a sacrament. How little he is borne out in such 
doctrines by the figurative expressions of the fathers, when 
speaking of baptismal r eg enertion, will appear from a 
reference even to those passages on which he relies. 
And how unnecessary such a novel hypothesis is to the 
obligation and importance of the ceremony in question, 
may appear from the far better arguments which he after- 
wards produces in its favour ; from the known practice 
of the apostles, in the case of the Samaritan converts ; 



280 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

and from the fact, that imposition of hands is classed by 
St. Paul among the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. 

That confirmation was not a temporary rite, or to lose 
its inward and ordinary blessing when the visible and 
miraculous gifts were withdrawn, which, in the first ages 
of the church, attended it, he proves from the analogy of 
other external rites, which had equally, in the first ages, 
extraordinary effects and miraculous consignations, but 
which, as in the case of preaching, prayer, &c. ; are al- 
lowed by all parties to be still necessary, though such 
obvious and wonderful fruits are no longer to be antici- 
pated from them. 

The ordinary and internal graces of the Spirit are 
promised, as he observes, to all ages of the church ; and 
though our consignation is by a secret power, and the 
work is within, — " it does not therefore follow, that the 
external rite is not also intended/ 5 wherever that consig- 
nation is spoken of in Scripture. 

" For the rite is so wholly for the mystery, and the 
outward for the inward, and yet, by the outward, God so 
usually and regularly gives the inward, that as no man is 
to rely upon the external ministry, as if the ' opus opera- 
turn,' would do the whole duty ; so no man is to neglect 
the external, because the internal is the more principal. 
The mistake in this particular hath caused great contempt 
of the sacraments and rituals of the church, and is the 
ground of the Socinian errors in these questions." 

That it was the uniform custom of the primitive church, 
and every where (except, perhaps, in Egypt, where he 
does not satisfactorily get rid of a strong testimony of St. 
Ambrose,) confined to the ministration of the bishop 
alone ; that the essential parts of the rite are prayer, and 
imposition of hands, — and that the use of oil, though 
very ancient, is of ecclesiastical institution only, he proves 
with sufficient clearness in the three following sections. 
In the sixth, he ably, though in a simple and unambitious 
style, states the spiritual benefits of which confirmation is 
the outward and appointed means, — and, in the last, dis- 
cusses the proper age and preparation for the ceremony. 
In speaking of the proper age of candidates, he holds 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 281 

an opinion at variance with the usual practice of the 
Church of England, which is seldom to admit them to the 
solemn rite till they are fourteen or fifteen years of age. 
He, on the contrary, recommends receiving them much 
earlier, — "the sooner the better, I mean, after that reas- 
on begins to dawn ;" provided only that " the children 
be catechized, and well instructed in the fundamentals of 
religion." 

He proceeds, with an earnest recommendation of the 
ancient custom of catechizing, in which he observes, by 
the way, that what is called exorcis?n, in the ancient 
church, was not, as is vulgarly supposed, an attempt to 
eject the devil out of innocent children, but that the ex- 
orcist was only another word for catechist ; — and he then 
winds up his argument with a short and energetic perora- 
tion, on the blessings derived from, and the obligations 
attached to, an attendance on the rite which he has thus 
vindicated. 

On the whole, the learning and piety of this little tract 
are not unworthy of Taylor, and he deserves, at least, the 
praise of having made out his point satisfactorily. But, 
except this learning and piety, there is, perhaps, scarce- 
ly any thing else in the Essay on Confirmation, which 
would mark it as his writing. He has not, indeed, slept 
over his task ; but it cannot be said that he has drawn 
his bow to the full extent of his usual force and vigour. 
And we shall be, perhaps, the more struck with this in- 
feriority, if we compare it with the little Essay on 
Friendship, which follows next in the present series, and 
which may be considered, without impropriety, as the 
earliest of his casuistic writings. 

Of the lady to whom it is addressed I have already 
spoken ; and she, certainly, deserves some credit for hav- 
ing suggested such a theme to Taylor, inasmuch as it was 
calculated, more than most others, to elicit the fires of 
his peculiar eloquence. It was a topic, also, on which 
his good sense and practical wisdom (of which qualities 
few men of equal genius have had a larger share,) were 
likely to furnish very valuable rules, for the maintenance 
of affection in its just temper ; for the increase and pre- 



282 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

servation of our interest in the breast of the beloved in- 
dividual ; and for the subjection and devotion of even our 
best and strongest feelings, to that common Father, from 
whom all pure affection flows. — Accordingly, he has pro- 
duced a splendid and powerful essay, which, though the 
fair and enthusiastic Orinda should seem to have preferred, 
the forgotten one of Mr. Francis Finch, will not appear, 
to the generality of readers, to derogate from the high 
character of his greater and more laboured performances. 

He begins, however, with a paradox, of which I am not 
sure that it does not rest on a quibble. He tells his cor- 
respondent, that friendship, in the sense under which we 
commonly use the term, — " is not so much as named in 
the New Testament ;" and he accounts for this, by say- 
ing, that " the greatest love, and the greatest usefulness, 
and the most open communication, and the noblest suf- 
ferings, and the most exemplar faithfulness, and the se- 
verest truth, and the heartiest counsel, and the greatest 
union of mind, of which brave men and women are ca- 
pable,'' are, under the Christian term of Charity, poten- 
tially due from us to all mankind, and directly, opposed 
to that affection, which is "like the sun peeping through 
a chink," or " his beams drawn into the centre of a burn- 
ing glass." 

That charity, in this sense, is not friendship, is most 
true, since it is the general principle of affection of which 
friendship is an application to particular instances, incom- 
pliance with that imperfection of our nature, and those 
circumstances of society, which limit our active affections, 
and our confidential intercourse (like our alms, and our 
personal intercessions,) to those with whom we are brought 
in contact, and who only are, therefore, susceptible of our 
service or our tenderness. 

But this limitation, and particular application of the 
common principle, he himself allows to be natural and ne- 
cessary ; and he admits, that the good and glorious Per- 
son, who, in human nature, has given us the most perfect 
example of the best application and employment of all 
our natural affections, has left us instances, in his own 
conduct, of that condensed and distinctive love, which he 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 283 

felt for one of the apostles, in a greater degree, than for 
the remaining eleven, and for the family of Lazarus, more 
than for the great mass of those who believed on him. 

This, which the Christian Scriptures call charity, as 
being a particular application of the general grace, he ad- 
mits, in philosophy, is called "friendship" But if the 
thing be named, though under a different term, in the 
New Testament, his assertion, that it does not occur, must 
resolve itself into a quibble only. And, in fact though 
we have translated dyanaco and dyanr], perhaps, too in- 
discriminately, by the common and genuine term of 
"love," and the almost technical term of "charity," — it 
would be easy to show, not only that the corresponding 
word in Hebrew is applied to the " friendship" of David 
and Jonathan, but that dyanaoi is used in the New Testa- 
ment, as strictly synonymous with the proper Greek term 
of friendship, (pdsco, and that it is applied, both there, 
and in the classical writers, to express not only " love" 
in its exalted sense, but a much slighter degree of " lik- 
ing," or " approbation." 

His doctrine, however, that friendship is the applica- 
tion to a particular person, of the love which, but for the 
weakness of our nature, we should feel for all, is strictly 
philosophical, as well as Christian ; and there are few 
passages in his works more characteristic, more appro- 
priate, or more beautiful, than the following illustration 
of the general principle. 

" Thus, the sun is the eye of the world, and he is in- 
different [impartial] to the negro, or the cold Russian ; 
to them that dwell under the line, [qu. Pole?] and them 
that stand near the tropics ; the scalded Indian, or the 
poor boy that shakes at the foot of the Riphean hills. 
But the flexures of the heaven and the earth, the con- 
venience of abode, and the approaches to the north and 
south respectively, change the emanations of his beams ; 
not that they do not pass always from him, but that they 
are not equally received below ; but by periods and 
changes, by little inlets and reflections, they receive what 
they can. And some have only a dark day and a long 
night from him ; snows and white cattle ; a miserable 



284 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

life, and a perpetual harvest of catarrhs and consump- 
tions ; apoplexies and dead palsies. But some have 
splendid fires, and aromatic spices, rich wines, and well 
digested fruits, great wit, and great courage ; because 
they dwell in his eye, and look in his face, and are the 
courtiers of the sun, and wait upon him in his chambers 
of the east. Just so it is in friendships : some are wor- 
thy, and some are necessary ; some dwell hard by, and 
are fitted for converse ; nature joins some to us, and re- 
ligion combines us with others ; society and accidents, 
parity of fortune, and equal dispositions, do actuate our 
friendships, which, of themselves, and in their prime dis- 
position, are prepared for all mankind, according as any 
one can receive them." 

Having thus defined and explained the nature of 
friendship, he goes on to observe, that there may be a 
special friendship contracted for any special excellency 
whatsoever ; because friendships are nothing but love 
and society mixed together, that is, a conversing with 
them whom we love ; now, for whatsoever we can love 
any one, for that we can be his friend ; and, since every 
excellency is a degree of amiability, every such worthi- 
ness is a just and proper motive of friendship or loving 
conversation." 

But all excellencies can only so far become the ob- 
jects of friendship as they are or may be advantageous 
to ourselves. Even virtue itself, in the abstract, or as 
displayed towards God and mankind in general, though 
it be the best motive for esteem and honour, is not enough, 
he observes, " to make a man my privado, my special 
and particular friend ;" but, if he be a good man — 
XQtjvTog dvi]Q — a Tcind and useful and amiable person, he 
is then such an one, as " some will even dare to die for." 

" If you suspect that this discourse can suppose friend- 
ship to be mercenary, and to be defective in the greatest 
worthiness of it, which is to love our friend for our friend's 
sake, I shall easily be able to defend myself; because I 
speak of the election and reasons of choosing friends. 
After he is chosen, do as nobly as you talk, and love as 
purely as you dream ; and let your conversation be as 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 285 

metaphysical as your discourse, and proceed inthis me- 
thod till you be confuted by experience ; yet, till then 
the case is otherwise when we speak of choosing one to 
be my friend. He is not my friend till I have chosen 
him or loved him ; and, if any man inquire whom he 
shall choose, or whom he should love, 1 suppose it ought 
not to be answered, that we should love him who hath 
least amability ; that we should choose him who hath 
least reason to be chosen. But, if it be answered, he is 
to be chosen to be my friend who is most worthy in him- 
self, not he that can do most good to me, I say there is a 
distinction, but no difference ; for he is most worthy in 
himself who can do most good ; and, if he can love me 
too, that is, if he will do me all the good he can, or that 
I need, then he is my friend, and he deserves it." — 
" True and brave friendships are between worthy per- 
sons ; and there is in mankind no degree of worthiness 
that is not also a degree of usefulness, and by every 
thing by which a man is excellent I may be profited : and 
because those are the bravest friends which can best 
serve the ends of friendships, either we must suppose 
that friendships are not the greatest comforts in the world ; 
or else we must say, he chooses his friend best, that 
chooses such a one by whom he can receive the greatest 
comforts and assistances." 

Still this obligation to choose our friends for their apt- 
ness to give us the greatest help, comfort, or pleasure, 
does not lay on us the necessity of choosing always the 
best. You must not, he observes, choose a friend who is 
deficient in the essentials of friendship, who is not " hon- 
est and secret, just and true to a tittle ; but if he be 
wise at all, and useful in any degree, and as good as you 
can have him, you need not be ashamed to own your 
friendships, though sometimes you may be ashamed of the 
imperfections of your friend." 

Even " fancy and little partialities ; a conformity of 
humours and proportionable loves, and the beauty of the 
face, and a witty answer," he admits of as circumstances 
which may, in the first instance, produce a liking; though 
he urges, with reason, that this Platonic and fanciful re- 
25 



286 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

gard will never be maintained at the rate of a real friend- 
ship, " unless it be fed by pure materials, by worthiness- 
es which are the food of friendship. 5 ' — " I will/' he con- 
cludes, " when I choose my friend, choose him that is 
the bravest, the worthiest and most excellent person ; 
and then your first question is soon answered. To love 
such a person, and to contract such friendship, is just so 
authorized by the principles of Christianity, as it is war- 
ranted to love wisdom and virtue, goodness and benefi- 
cence, and all the impresses of God upon the spirits of 
brave men." 

Under the next head, that of the limits of friendship, 
he assigns no boundary to the affection and service 
which friend may show to friend,but the borders of vice and 
virtue, — a man may die for his friend, if that friend be a 
worthy and useful person ; he may sacrifice his property 
for his friend, if he does not transgress against the duty 
which he owes to his natural relations ; but he must not, 
like Pollux, kill the person who speaks slightingly of his 
friend, nor must he transgress the laws of God or man to 
serve him. 

In the same section are some very sensible observa- 
tions as to the difference between friendship and filial or 
fraternal love ; on the circumstances which may render 
a friend more intimate than either a parent or a brother; 
though no friend, he forcibly urges, can prudently or 
lawfully take precedence of a wife or a husband. 

" The reason is, because marriage is the queen of friend- 
ships, in which there is a communication of all that can 
be communicated by friendship ; and it being made sa- 
cred by vows and love, by bodies and souls, by interest 
and custom, by religion and by laws, by common counsels 
and common fortunes ; it is the principle in the kind of 
friendship, and the measure of all the rest. And there 
is no abatement to this consideration, but that there may 
be some allay in this as in other lesser friendships, by the 
incapacity of the persons. If I have not chosen my 
friend wisely or fortunately, he cannot be the correlative 
in the best union ; but then the friend lives as the soul 
does after death: it is in the state of separation, in which 






LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR D.D. 287 

the soul strangely loves the body and longs to be re-uni- 
ted, but the body is an useless trunk, and can do no min- 
isteries to the soul, which therefore prays to have the 
body reformed and restored, and made a brave and fit 
companion : so must these best friends, when one is use- 
less or unapt to the braveries of the princely friendship; 
they must love ever, and pray ever, and long till the 
other be perfected and made fit : in this case there wants 
only the body, but the soul is still a relative, and must 
be so for ever." 

In the next inquiry, — " How friendships are to be con- 
ducted ?" — he has given some very wise and useful, though 
moderate and indulgent advice, for the case of an intima- 
cy between persons of different sexes ; where " not only 
the interest of their religion, and the care of their hon- 
our, but the worthiness of their friendship, require that 
their intercourse be prudent and free from suspicion or 
reproach." Yet even here he does not enjoin an im- 
plicit deference to " the noises of people :" and he sub- 
joins a spirited and affectionate eulogium of the female 
character, and its fitness for all the noblest duties of 
friendship. 

He concludes his essay with some short rules of duty 
and prudence to be observed by one friend towards anoth- 
er, of which the practical wisdom is not inferior to the 
simplicity : but for which it is necessary to refer my rea- 
ders to the work itself, if they read the whole of which 
they will find the short labour well repaid.* 

That which follows next is of far greater bulk and 
labour. The necessity of such works as the " Ductor 
Dubitantium" had, very plainly, its origin in those times, 
and among those sects of Christians with whom auricular 
confession and priestly absolution were regarded as the 
duty of every penitent ; the preliminary of all celestial 
mercy. — When a body of many thousand persons, of va- 
rious ages and all degrees of acquirement or capacity, 
were liable to become the depositories of the most im- 
portant or the most trifling secrets, and called on to pro- 

♦Note ZZ. 



288 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

nounce authoritatively on the spiritual condition of all 
ranks and under all possible circumstances, it was abso- 
lutely necessary that the more skilful of these confiden- 
tial monitors should lay down rules for the less learned ; 
and that all precedents should be collected and preserv- 
ed, which might lighten the labour, or guide the judg- 
ment, or diminish the responsibility, of the busy, the un- 
informed, the timid, or the diffident ministers of reli- 
gion. 

And this necessity became the greater in proportion 
as the abuses of the Romish superstition were multiplied. 
While the rules of faith were drawn from the apostles' 
creed, and the rules of conduct from the ten command- 
ments ; while the terms of church communion, were easy 
and perspicuous, and the church had laid no further bur- 
then on her members than those few and simple customs 
and ceremonies which derived their sanction from the 
apostles and from Christ ; there was less occasion to wan- 
der from so wide a road, and, from one so plain, whoever 
wandered was more easily detected and censured. 

But, when the commandments or inventions of men 
were taught under the same sanction with the doctrines 
of inspiration, when prohibitions of things lawful or indiff- 
erent were multiplied without warrant or necessity ; and 
states of life and society, in themselves, unnatural were 
grafted on a creed which was at first the perfection of 
natural religion, the feelings of men revolted against rules 
thus arbitrarily imposed ; while their consciences were 
not sufficiently enlightened to make them satisfied that 
their revolt was innocent. The multitude of cases was 
thus greatly increased, which sought, at the hands of the 
confessor, for ghostly counsel and comfort ; and so inevi- 
tably does the commission of one supposed fault lead 
to others, that the habitual transgression of the com- 
mandment of the church seldom failed to carry men fur- 
ther into a neglect of the divine commandments also ; 
till offences against general morality became more numer- 
ous, in proportion as the breach of ecclesiastical laws be- 
came more inevitable. 

It had been thus, in more ancient times, with the Jew- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 289 

ish doctors, whose " hedge" of traditions and ceremonies 
had only served to enroach on and block up the path 
of duty, and whose volumes of casuistry are sufficiently 
bulky, though they had not among their institutions, so 
fruitful a mother of quibbles as the practice of confes- 
sion. 

Among Christians of the Romish church, it may be 
easily understood how the indulgence of some spiritual 
guides ; — the ostentatious ingenuity of others ; — the de- 
sire, in a third party of conciliating wealthy and powerful 
sinners ; — and, in a fourth, the refinements of an impure 
curiosity, excited and employed by a great majority of the 
cases which came before them, — would produce a plen- 
tiful harvest of distinctions, provisions, abatements, and 
aggravations, sufficient, when duly stated, to distort, to 
almost any extent, the features of almost any action or 
course of actions. 

What mischief had, in this respect, been done by the 
Jesuit confessors and casuists, may be seen in several parts 
of Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery, and still more in the 
spirited invective of Pascal. But the matter grew still 
worse, when cases of conscience were brought into courts 
of law ; when the institutions of penance and ecclesias- 
tical censure, as managed in the Church of Rome, and 
as commuted for by pecuniary fines, became the subjects 
of legal argument and of that perverse ingenuity which a 
counsel is generally expected to exert, on behalf of his 
client 

In civil courts, indeed, that ingenuity can produce but 
little harm ; since it is avowedly exercised on the laws of 
man alone, and since the eternal sanctions of morality re- 
main entire and unbroken, whatever temporal conse- 
quences are incurred or averted by the parties. But the 
misfortune was, that the spiritual tribunal professed to ex- 
ert an influence beyond the present world, and when an 
equal danger of purgatory was incurred by a breach of a 
canon as of a commandment, and when the consequences 
of both the one and the other might be got rid of by a 
flaw in the indictment ; it is less strange that offences 
were multiplied, than it is that they were so far repressed 
25* 



290 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

by the general good feelings of mankind, and that efficacy 
which yet remained in the obscured and neglected Gos- 
pels. But as offences multiplied, distinctions multiplied 
also ; and we cannot wonder, therefore that the very title 
of the canon law was " Concordantia Discordantiarum ;" 
that " the easy commandment was wrapped up in uneasy 
learning ; and by the new methods, a simple and uncraf- 
ty man could hardly be wise unto salvation." There is 
a wood before your doors, and a labyrinth within the wood 
and locks and bars to every door in that labyrinth ; and, 
after all, we are like to meet with unskilful guides ; and 
yet, of all things in the world, in these things an error is 
the most intolerable." 

But, while such had been the original occasion, and 
such the gradual but appaling progress of casuistry in the 
Church of Rome ; it was not very apparent why the re- 
formed churches, who had shaken off the accumulated 
load of ages, were again, without the same occasion, to 
begin to rebuild the fabric. Why, when their rule was 
brought back to its primitive simplicity, and the Scriptures 
which contained that rule were made accessible to all ; 
when they had restricted the lash of ecclesiastical cen- 
sure to a very few, and those very palpable and notori- 
ous cases of public scandal ; and when, by leaving con- 
fession optional, they had cut off the necessity which 
made every parish minister a casuist, — why were they to 
darken what was so plain by needless explanation, or en- 
courage a nearer approach to forbidden things by an at- 
tempt to define the precise limits of the prohibition ? 

That first thoughts are generally best, in cases of duty, 
has been observed by Taylor as well as by Paley. I 
have myself had sufficient experience of what are gene- 
rally called scruples, to be convinced that the greater 
proportion of those which are submitted to a spiritual 
guide, are nothing more than artifices by which men seek 
to justify themselves in what they know to be wrong : 
and I am convinced that the most efficacious manner of 
easing a doubtful conscience is, for the most part, to re- 
call the professed penitent from distinctions to generals ; 
from the peculiarities of his private concerns to the sim- 






LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 291 

pie words of the commandment. If we are too curious, 
we only muddy the stream : but the clearest truth is, in 
, morals, always on the surface. 

Still there were yet remaining, in the two first centu- 
ries after the Reformation, circumstances (besides the 
precedent of the Roman church, and the secret regret of 
the influence formerly enjoyed by their order, which, how- 
ever unsuspected by themselves, was likely to actuate the 
more learned of the Protestant clergy,) which might well 
impress on the mind of Taylor and of many of his con- 
temporaries, the opinion that a work of casuistiy was a 
desideratum in the Church of England, and its want a de- 
fect which might be with reason objected to that church 
by its adversaries. 

There were, probably, more genuine and conscientious 
scruples at that time busy in the public mind than are 
likely to occur at present. The religious ferment, and the 
spirit of inquiry which it excited, which accompanied the 
reformation of religion, had been kept up by the Puritans, 
and after them by the Independents, with unfailing force 
and activity: and though the Reformation in England 
had been conducted on wiser and more moderate prin- 
ciples, and had, in fact, overlooked all trifles in order to 
make the better clearance of essential abuses ; yet had 
the minds of men been drawn, by the weakness of some, 
and the mischievous arts of others, to trifles and external 
circumstances, in a degree of which our present religious 
divisions afford us no conception. 

There are few even of the dissenting divines who now 
preach against, there are fewer still who really care for, 
the peculiarities of the established church in its habits and 
ceremonies. Its liturgy is praised almost by all. Yet 
not avowed dissenters only, but no small party of those 
who had been episcopally ordained, and appointed to of- 
fices within the limits of the establishment, were, in the 
days of Charles the First, conscientiously miserable at the 
thought of standing in a surplice, or saying any prayer but 
of .their own composing. Many thousand good and pious 
men, and probably a still greater number of women, were 
distressed between the fear of schism, and the crime of 



992 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

attending in a place of worship where even the minutest 
particular was not warranted by some explicit text of 
Scripture. 

The wickedness of mince-pies and plum-porridge, and 
the question how far these abominations might be winked 
at, when believers were unequally yoked with a prelatist, 
agitated many well-meaning minds ; while there were 
others, of a contrary faction, who looked with horror on 
the marriage of second cousins, and were seriously troub- 
led if, during the forty days, any flesh-meat were seen in 
their houses. 

The law of Moses ; the question how far it was repeal- 
ed or how far it still subsisted in the particulars of blood, 
perhaps of pork, and certainly of a sabbatical rest on the 
Lord's day, was also a frequent cause of secret distress or 
domestic litigation ; while, on the other hand, individuals 
were not wanting who, despising all ordinances, exclaim- 
ed against their kindred and neighbours as legalists and 
foolish Galatians. 

It is possible that, in the present age of sects, some of 
these wild tenets may still be active and mischiveous ; but 
the greater part of our divisions arise from other causes, 
and, above all, the habits of the time lead men rather to 
decide their scruples for themselves and in their own way, 
than to recur to their spiritual pastors. 

But to how great an extent such feelings then prevail- 
ed, may be learned from the fact that during the time that 
the celebrated Dr. Owen was dean of Christchurch,a reg- 
ular office for the satisfaction of doubtful consciences was 
held in Oxford. How long it continued, or what were 
the numbers that resorted to it, I am not informed. It 
possibly was of the shorter duration from the ludicrous 
name of " scruple-shop," which was given it by the 
younger students. 

Nor was it a slight aggravation of the mischief that the 
emissaries of the Church of Rome were, in the mean time, 
always active ; ready to remind every uneasy conscience 
Of the rest and relief to be found within the pale of their 
communion; vaunting the acuteness and learning of their 
doctors, and the comfort of their absolution ; and obtaining 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 293 

the more abundant draughts of fishes the more the waters 
were troubled. 

Under such circumstances, it was an expedient which 
would naturally occur to the clergy of the episcopal 
church, to meet both Puritans and Papists at their own 
weapons, and to supply, from a rational and legitimate 
source, that satisfaction to restless spirits which the oth- 
ers professed to furnish by a false stimulus, or a still more 
deceitful opiate. 

Accordingly, the work now executed by Taylor had 
been projected by many eminent persons before him. 
Besides some writers of the same sort, by different Lu- 
theran divines, (who, as still retaining, before the admin- 
istration of the sacrament, a shadow of the old confession- 
al, have more reason than those of the English church 
for affixing a value to such assistances,) the excellent 
Bishop Hall had made a beginning which he did not live 
to complete ; and Sanderson, whose lectures " de con- 
scientia," had shown very considerable talent in the eris- 
tical part of morality, was urged by Charles the First, in 
his last attendance on him, to employ the remainder of 
his life in writing cases of conscience. 

It was not, however, to the detail of individual scruples 
that Taylor gave up his learning and genius. This, in- 
deed, had been the usual practice of previous writers on 
the same subject. The Romish casuists, at least, (for 
the Lutherans I only knew through the notices of them 
in Michaelis and in Taylor himself,) have contented 
themselves, for the most part, with filling their enormous 
volumes with cases, sometimes classed, indeed, under 
general heads, but not often submitted to any general or 
steady principles ; a wilderness of precedents, of which 
(as they were rather selected for curiosity than for their 
irequent occurrence,) hardly a twentieth part could be ex- 
pected to be really useful. 

Taylor, on the other hand, has introduced his cases as 
illustrations and examples only, and by far the greater part 
of his work is devoted to the exposition of general prin- 
ciples, in which, with far more learning, and perhaps, 
(the time at which he wrote considered,) with equal orig- 



294 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

inality, but with a clearness of arrangement and expres- 
sion altogether much inferior, he has preceded in the same 
track the labours of Tucker and Paley. 

To give a regular analysis of so extensive a work, 
would be either to repeat the table of contents, or mate- 
rially to exceed the bounds of a critical essay. 1 shall, 
therefore, content myself with offering to the reader a 
very slight outline of the plan, selecting only those parts 
for further comment, which, for their acuteness, their cu- 
riosity, their eloquence, or sometimes even their errone- 
ous nature, appear to me to call for such a distinction. 

After a preface, in which the importance and necessi- 
ty of the attempt is throughout assumed, and which is 
chiefly directed against the sophistry and interminable 
length of his Romish predecessors, he has divided his 
work into four books, each containing several long chap- 
ters. 

In the first, he defines the nature of conscience, its 
uses, and their impediments, pointing out the different 
characteristics of a "right or sure conscience," — aeon- 
science confident in error, — a " probable or thinking," — 
a "doubtful," and a "scrupulous conscience." Of all 
these, his definitions, though a little overlaid with words 
and misplaced eloquence, are distinct and forcible, and 
his illustrations often very fine and appropriate. 

Such a one occurs where he has been observing that, 
" we cannot take any direct account of the greatness or 
horror of a sin by the afFrightment of conscience." 

"For," he proceeds, "it is with the afFrightments of 
conscience as it is in temporal judgments ; sometimes they 
come not at all, and, when they do, they come irregularly, 
and, when they do not, the man does not escape-" — 
" But as he who is not smitten of God, yet knows he is 
always liable to God's anger, and, if he repents not, it 
will certainly fall upon him hereafter ; so it is in con- 
science. He that fears not, hath never the less cause to 
fear, but oftentimes a greater, and therfore is to suspect 
and alter his condition, as being of a deep and secret dan- 
ger ; and he that does fear, must alter his condition, as 
being highly troublesome. But, in both cases, conscience 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 295 



does the work of a monitor and a judge. In some cases, 
conscience is like an eloquent and fair-spoken judge, 
which declaims not against the criminal, but condemns 
him justly ; in others, the judge is more angry, and 
affrights the prisoner more ; but the event is still the 
same. For, in those sins where the conscience affrights, 
and in those in which she affrights not, (supposing the 
sins equal, but of differing natures,) there is no other dif- 
ference, but that conscience is a clock, which in one man 
strikes aloud and gives warning ; and in another, the hand 
points silently to the figures, but stikes not ; but by this 
he may as surely see what the other hears, that his hours 
pass away, and death hastens, and after death comes 
judgment !" 

The rules which he gives to distinguish a true peace of 
conscience, which he defines to be " a rest after a severe 
inquiry/ 5 are full of holy and practical wisdom ; as when 
he remarks that " peace of mind is not to be used as a 
sign that God hath pardoned our sins, but is only of use 
in questions of particular fact. — What evils have I done ? 
— what good have I left undone ?" This is a very useful 
caution to two different classes of men, — those who afflict 
themselves without knowing why, and those who are sat- 
isfied when they ought to be afflicted. 

The rule of a right conscience, he expresses to be "the 
speculative determination of the understanding," and sub- 
joins as the single necessary caution, "that we be as sure 
of our speculation as of any other rule which we usually 
follow, and that we do not take vain philosophy for true 
speculations." And while establishing this assertion, he 
maintains at some length, and with much acuteness, the 
use of reason in matters of religion, answering the differ- 
ent objections which are ordinarily made against it, and 
proving that, though reason may not be able to render an 
account of mysteries which are but imperfectly revealed 
to us, yet, the authenticity of the revelation is, in the first 
instance, cognizable by reason; while, though things may 
be true which our reason cannot comprehend, yet what 
our reason rejects we cannot receive as revealed by God ; 
so that "though right reason is not the positive and affir- 



296 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

mative measure of any article, yet it is the negative meas- 
ure of every one." Obedience of the understanding to 
God he acknowledges to be our undoubted duty; "but 
that," he observes, " is only when God speaks. But be- 
cause we heard him not, and are only told that God did 
speak, — our reason must examine whether it befit to be- 
lieve them that tell us so." 

In the course of this inquiry many interesting corolla- 
ries occur, as to the question of two wills in God : — the 
conformity of reason and faith : — and the vanity of judi- 
cial astrology, which last he condemns not on the score of 
its supposed impiety and contradiction to Scripture, but 
as the instrument of imposture and delusion ; and, there- 
fore, against religion, not as an unlawful exercise of reas- 
on, but as mere folly and knavery, and on account of the 
" dangerous and horrid consequents which they feel, than 
run a whoring after such idols of imagination." 

His examination of mixed motives, and censure which 
he passes on good actions when done from secular or in- 
competent arguments, are useful and well-founded ; 
though, under this last head, and while discussing the in- 
cidental question, " whether it be lawful and ingenious to 
go about to persuade a man to the belief of a true propo- 
sition, by arguments with which we ourselves are not per- 
suaded ?" he has made some admissions which a severe 
lover of truth will hardly allow to pass without reproba- 
tion. 

An " argumentum ad hominem" is, indeed, perfectly 
allowable, whioh proceeds on the supposition, not upon 
the concession and granting of an error. But this, which 
is no more than taking a man on his own grounds, has no 
natural tendency to make him believe that I agree with 
him in that particular. The argument is good, because 
the premises are conventionally so ; and the effect is not 
so much to convince a man of the truth of our inference, 
as to unsettle his prejudices against that inference, and, by 
proving his own principles to be inconsistent, to make him 
the more ready to submit himself to ours. 

But the case is very different, when I use the argu- 
ments which I know or believe to be bad, because 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 297 

cc there may be something in my opponent that can make 
the argument to become perfect and effectual." This is 
like feeding a hungry man with chaff, because there may 
be some peculiarity in his digestion, which can extract its 
nutritive qualities. 

If other competent judges have laid stress on such an 
argument, we may, indeed, advance it as theirs, and in 
deference to their authority. But, even here, it can 
hardly be allowed us to advance it without premising the 
caution that it is not our own opinion which we express, 
and that we therefore can lay no stress on it. And, as 
arguments thus brought forward are likely to be of little 
service to our cause, it is apparently, both wiser and bet- 
ter to confine ourselves to such arguments only as are 
really satisfactory to our understanding. 

This, however, will, of course, not conclude against 
our stating as possible, or probable, such consequences as, 
though they do not certainly follow from the premises, 
may yet, without contradiction, do so. But the premises 
are, by their very nature and employment, presumed to 
be truths ; nor can we honestly use any thing as a pre- 
mise, which we do not either believe to be true, or, at 
least, state hypothetically. 

He speaks more justly, when he will not allow of any 
distinction between'a man's public conscience as a magis- 
trate and his private conscience as an indivdual ; and 
where he observes that " conscience hath power in obli- 
gations and rules, but not so much nor so often in permis- 
sions." Thus a person may in no case do that which con. 
science forbids, but may not always go so far as she allows. 

Under the head of " a probable or thinking conscience," 
he teaches, with great justice, that " a conscience that is, 
at first and in its own nature, probable, may be made 
certain by accumulation of many probabilities operating 
the same persuasion. And of this kind of " moral dem- 
onstration," he gives an instance in a magnificent sketch 
of the different probabilities on which a faith in Christian- 
ity is founded. Few of his most splendid passages in the 
most popular of his writings exceed some parts of this ar- 
gument : as, when he speaks of the doctrine of Christ, 

26 



298 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D,D. 

" hunting the demons from their tripods,— their " navels ;" 
their dens, their hollow pipes, their temples, and their al- 
tars ;" as " flourishing, like the palm, by pressure ; grow- 
ing glorious by opposition ; thriving by persecution, and 
demonstrated by objections ;" or where, contrasting it 
with the local rites and restricted worship of the Jews, 
he says of the Christian religion, that it is " as eternal as 
the soul of a man, and can no more cease than our spirits 
can die, and can worship upon mountains and in caves, 
in fields and churches, in peace and war, in solitude and 
society, in persecution and in sunshine, by day and by 
night, and be solemnized by clergy and laity in the es- 
sential parts of it, and is the perfection of the soul, and 
the highest reason of man, and the glorification of God." 
There are many other valuable principles laid down in 
this part of his work, of which a few are all that 1 can 
instance. Such are his positions, that " Reason weighs 
more than authority ;" that " a multitude of authorities, 
when they are deducible from one or a few, add nothing 
to the strength of that on which they themselves rest: 
that authority alone is no sufficient proof after a new 
doubt has been started ; and, that an apparent interest in 
the person who maintains a proposition is no more reas- 
on for disbelieving than for believing it*" 

Some of his illustrations of a doubtful conscience, are 
not over delicate, or even decent, and some of his posi- 
tions dangerous. Of the first description, is a very inju- 
dicious quotation from Toletus ; and of the second, his 
admission that private evil may be done by public men 
and for the public necessity ; which, though with many 
limitations, and in very few instances, as in that of war, 
the employment of spies, &c. it may possibly be true, 
yet is hardly to be allowed in any instance without peril. 
It is, however, a very just and reasonable observation, 
which he makes in the same chapter, that " positive and 
temporary" ought to give way to higher duties. Such, 
also, is his distinction between a doubting and a scrupu- 
lous conscience, that " against the first a man may not 
work, but against the second he may." All his advice, 
indeed, to scrupulous persons, is excellent." 






LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 299 

His second book begins with an examination of the 
law of nature, which he defines to be "the universal law 
of mankind, concerning common necessities, to which we 
are inclined by nature, incited by consent, prompted by 
reason, but [which] is bound upon us only by the com- 
mand of God." 

Its two sanctions he defines to be fear and love ; the 
first, of a bad conscience, a bad name, or the other penal 
consequences which Providence, and society inflict on 
guilt ; the next is not so much born with us, as implanted 
in us by education, and by the hopes of future reward 
which God has, in revelation, held out to us. 

To the law of nature thus defined, he assigns an au- 
thority superior to all positive institutions though its laws, 
(as he observes,) may be capable of interpretation, and 
may be allayed by equity, piety, and necessity. 

In speaking of contracts, he allows that an unlawful or 
impossible contract cannot hold ; but he materially limits 
the permission given by the lawyers to annul contracts 
made under false impressions. When a contract is made 
against the positive institutions of man, in points where 
the law of God is silent ; though the parties may have 
sinned in entering into it, yet " the after actions, being no 
sins, cannot be invalidated ;" and even " if the contract 
be made against a divine law," if it can be fulfilled on our 
part without sin, and " the contract be extrinsical to the 
nature of the sin incurred," the contract is binding, though 
its occasion is to be repented of. 

In this last case, he agrees with Paley, (Moral Philos- 
ophy, b. xi. c. 5,) and has to all appearance, taken a 
clearer view of the moral obligation of contracts than 
Sanderson did on a similar question. It is probable that 
Sanderson judged differently, from the same sense of the 
inexpediency of such contracts becoming general which has 
induced Paley, inconsistently enough, to reject his own 
principle, (where it ought , a fortiori, to hold good, and 
does hold good, according to Taylor,) in the case of a 
promise made to a robber. 

To the law of nature in general, the Christian law suc- 
ceeds, which he describes as, " The law of Nature, or of 



300 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 

all mankind, as it is commanded, digested, and perfected 
by our Supreme Lawgiver Jesus Christ." 

This, as the great rule of conscience, he distinguishes 
from the Mosaic law, which has entirely ceased to bind, 
any further than as it contains some particulars which be- 
long to the moral law, or law of nature. From the list 
of those particulars he does not exclude the prohibition of 
eating blood, which he interprets, with good reason, not 
to mean the use of black puddings, but the hateful prac- 
tice, common in the East and amongst barbarous nations 
of devouring the members of a living creature. But the 
judicial law he excludes in all its branches more particularly 
in that which was then the subject of frequent discus- 
sion, the intermarriage of persons within the degrees 
of consanguinity. On this head, he exposes the 
unwarranted additions to the Mosaic prohibition which 
had been made, in the case of cousins, brothers, 
widows, &c, by the Roman canonists ; and on the whole 
appears to take nearly the same view of the question as 
has been since taken by Michaelis : though he does not 
state, so plainly as Michaelis has done, the reasons which 
have, in all ages and countries, made some prohibitions 
necesssary ; and the local and temporal inconveniences 
which have obliged human lawgivers to extend, in some 
instances, those prohibitions still further. 

The Decalogue he refuses to consider as a perfect di- 
digest of the law of nature ; inasmuch as our duty extends 
to many particulars which are not expressed on those ta- 
bles. " It was intended," he conceives, " as a digest of 
all those moral laws in which God would expect and ex- 
act the obedience of the Jewish nation, leaving the per- 
fection and consummation of all unto the time of the Gos- 
pel. 

Here I conceive, he goes too far ; inasmuch as, though 
he insists on the violence which is necessary to reduce all 
the different parts of a Christian's duty to these ten prin- 
cipal heads, it is certain that this has been, and is done 
with sufficient exactness for any practical purpose, and 
that he himself, in his exposition of the ten command- 
ments, has ably and eloquently accomplished it. Nor is 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 301 

it true, as his hypothesis seems to suppose, that no other 
and more express moral laws were given to the Jews 
than these commandments. To give alms to the poor ; 
to help their enemy whose beast had fallen under his load, 
to pray for the peace of the land whither they were led 
captive ; to eat no living animal, which, as he himself 
allows, is part of the moral law : — all these laws are not 
only implied in the Decalogue, but explicitly laid down 
in different parts of the Mosaic volume ; and it would be 
very difficult to instance any particular of natural law, 
strictly so called, to which the Jews were not obliged as 
well as ourselves, though the stream of the command- 
ments had been disturbed and defiled by their rabbins, 
and though the Son of God, in his sermon on the mount, 
and by the still stronger lesson of his example, has vin- 
dicated them from corruption; and held them up a sec- 
ond time, and more clearly and gloriously than before, to 
our obedience and imitation. 

Taylor is correct, however, in his inferences : " That 
we acknowledge Christ to be our Lord -and Master, our 
Lawgiver and Teacher ; that we understand the ten 
commandments according to his commentary." — " That 
we expect no justification by our conformity to the deca- 
logue." — " That we endeavour to go on to perfection, 
not according to the pattern which Moses, but which 
Christ showed on the mount :" and " that we do not 
think it sufficient to live according to nature, but that we 
live according to grace, that is, the measures of reformed 
nature." And he himself has, in fact, abandoned what- 
ever was dangerous in his position simply taken, when he 
admits that all the precepts of morality " were potential- 
ly in the great commandment ;" and that rt there are 
the same general lines of religion, and of justice in the 
Old Testament and the New, though the special and 
particular precepts are severally instanced by Christ and 
Moses." 

He argues also more justly, when he says " that every 

thing in the Decalogue is not obligatory on Christians," 

though he is unfortunate in the first instance which he 

produces, " that the having or making of images, though 

26* 



302 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D, 

it be forbidden to the Jews in the second commandment? 
yet it is not unlawful to Christians. Of this I have said 
enough already ; and will here only observe, that it is 
strange that any man should hold such an interpretation 
of the commandment in question, who, at the same time, 
in order to prove it not obligatory on Christians, has in- 
stanced the golden lions of Solomon, surely, was a Jew ; 
he was also a very conspicuous person, and one whose 
faults are related in Scripture with due severity. If, then, 
he used such ornaments unblamed, it is plain, from this 
instance, as well as from Caesar's image on the Jewish 
coin, that the second commandment was interpreted by 
them, as by the generality of Protestants, to forbid idol- 
atry only. 

His observations on idolatry, however, and on the 
grievous presumption of picturing God, are excellent 
and, I think, unanswerable. His opinion of the Sabbath 
and the Lord's day I have already had occasion to men- 
tion. 

In the third chapter of the second book, which treats 
of the " interpretation and obligation of the laws of 
Christ," though there is much which is curious and valu- 
able, there are few things which call for particular notice. 
Much of it, indeed, is more historical and controversial 
than cauistical, and refers to the great disputes which have 
always agitated the Christian commonwealth since the 
period of the reformation. On these Taylor thought 
with all Protestants ; and an abundant store of weapons 
may be drawn from his armoury, for the future battles 
of the church. The maxims which strike me as most 
generally applicable, and, at the same time, most charac- 
teristic of their author, are, 1. that " all acts of virtue 
are to be preferred before the instruments of it, and that 
which exercises it before that which signifies it." 2. 
The difference between positive and negative laws, that, 
namely, when any thing is commanded, the means of 
doing it are left to our choice ; but, when any thing is 
forbidden, " all those things also, by which we come to 
that sin, are understood to be forbidden bv the same 
law/ 5 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 303 

" Every temptation," he observes, " is then certainly to 
be reckoned as a sin, when it is procured by our own act, 
whether the temptation ministers to the sin directly or ac- 
cidentally ;" — " and although the usual effect does not 
follow the intsrument. For there is sometimes a fantas- 
tic pleasure in the remembrance of sin, in the approach- 
es of it, of our addresses to it ; and there are some men 
who dare not act the foul crime, who yet love to look on its 
fair face ; and they drive out sin as Abraham did Ishma- 
el, with an unwilling willingness, (God knows :") — " and 
they look after it, and are pleased with the stories of it, 
and love to see the place of its acting." — " Now, they 
that go but thus far, and love to tempt themselves by 
walking on the side of the river," — " they have given 
demonstration of their love of sin when they make so 
much of its proxy." 

" But there are others, who have great experience of 
the vanity of all sin, and the emptiness and dissatisfaction 
that is in its fruition ; and know [that] as soon as ever 
they have enjoyed it, it is gone, and that there is more 
pleasure in the expectation than in the possession ; and 
therefore they had rather go towards it than arrive thith- 
er, and love the temptation better than sin. These men 
sin with an excellent philosophy and witness of sinning ; 
they love to woo always, and not to enjoy, ever to be 
hungry and sitting down to dinner, but are afraid to have 
their desires filed. But, if we consider what the secret 
of it is, and that there is in these men an immense love 
to sin, and a perfect adhesion to the pleasure of it, and 
that they refuse to enter lest they should quickly pass 
through : and they are unwilling to taste it, lest they 
should eat no more ; and would not enjoy, because they 
will not be weary of it ; and will deny any thing to 
themselves, even that which they most love, lest, for a 
while, they should loathe their beloved sin, — we shall see 
reason enough to affirm these men to be the greatest break- 
ers of the laws of Jesus Christ : though they only tempt 
themselves, and handle the instruments of sin ; and, al- 
though these instruments serve nothing but the tempta- 
tion, and the temptation does not serve the sin, whither 
in its own nature it is designed." 



304 LIFE OP JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

At page 128 of this volume, he betrays what I should 
hardly have expected from him an ignorance of a legend 
very generally known, and which is the oldest and most 
curious of all religious novels, — I mean, the " Acts of 
Paul and Thecla ; which he supposes, without any suffi- 
cient reason, to have been originally circulated as the 
work of St. Paul himself, and which he calls (I know 
not why,) " the vision of Paul and Thecla." The work, 
in fact, could never have been pretended to be St. Paul's 
writing, without ascribing to the apostle an incredible de- 
gree of vanity, both personal and theological. Jerome, 
indeed, does not say that the Asiatic presbyter, who was 
its author, wished to father it on the saint as his own 
composition, but that he was degraded by St. John for 
having, though with a good intent, circulated an untrue 
history concerning an apostle. Nor has the history, as 
it has descended to our time, (whatever might have been 
the case with Jerome's copy,) any mention " baptizati 
Leonis." 

Here again he resumes, and resumes with admirable 
power, and without intermixture of doubtful or extrane- 
ous matter, his favourite topic of secure and immediate 
repentance. He quotes St Eucherius, saying, " Pro- 
pound to yourself the example of the thief on the cross, 
— do as he did." — " Yes," proceeds Taylor, " we are to 
ready to do So, that is, to defer our repentance to the 
last, being encouraged by his example and success ! — 
No ! we do not as he did ! — He did not defer his repen- 
tance and his faith unto the last ; but, in the very first 
hour in which he knew Christ, in that very instant he 
did believe, and was really converted. He confessed 
Christ gloriously, and repented of his sins without hypoc- 
risy ; and, if we do so to, this question is at an end, and 
our repentance shall never be reproved." 

He concludes this second book with a splendid pero- 
ration on the measures and motives of a Christian's duty, 
exhorting him to do all his works "in faith and in love, 
in faith to make them excepted, though they be imper- 
fect ; in love, to make them as perfect as they can be." 
— •" He that loves, will think every thing too little ; and 






LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 305 

he that thinks so, will endeavour to do more, and to do 
it better." — "la the measures of the practice of this rule 
there is no difficulty; but what is made by the careless 
lives of Christians, and their lazy and unholy principles. 
At the rate as Christians usually do live, it is hard to 
know how, and in what instances, and in what degrees, 
our obedience ought to be more humble and more dili- 
gent than that of Moses's disciples. But they that love, 
will do the thing, and so understand the rule, < Obedite 
et intelligetis : ' Obey, and ye shall understand." 

In the first chapter of the third book, which treats of 
Human Laws and their obligation, — a case occurs, in il- 
lustration of Rule IV. that " a law founded on a false 
presumption does not bind the conscience," in which the 
Romish canonists seem to have given a more just decis- 
ion than Taylor. Biretti, a Venetian gentleman, pretends 
a desire to marry Julia Medici, the daughter of a neigh- 
bour, with a purpose to seduce and desert her. A con- 
tract is made ; but, before its execution, he gains his end, 
leaving her, marries another. The canonists declare the 
former contract, followed by congress, to be a marriage, 
and that he is bound to return to Julia. No says Taylor, 
" if he did not lie with her c affectu maritali,' " — " he was 
extremely impious and unjust ; but he made no marriage ; 
for without mutual consent, marriages are not made." 
Surely mutual consent is expressed by a public contract, 
as plainly as by any indication of a man's will that can be 
conceived. And, if Biretti were a hypocrite, it can be 
no reason why he should be free from the obligation im- 
plied by his own deliberate action ! I cannot account for 
the obliquity of this verdict, but I could not pass it over 
lest my silence should seem like approbation. 

The second chapter examines the power of princes to 
enact penal and tributary laws, and the obligation which 
rests on their subjects to obey such laws, in which he dis- 
cusses the lawfulness or obligation of resisting a legal sen- 
tence; of prison-breaking ; of self-chastisement ; and of su- 
icide. The first he admits of when the sentence is palpa- 
bly unjust, and pronounced by an usurped authority. The 
second, in all cases where life or limbs are to be preserv- 



306 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOJt, D.D. 

ed ; the third he confies to certain ecclesiastical cases ; 
and the fourth he condemns in all, even when perpetrat- 
ed by a virgin to save herself from pollution. Yet of 
such instances of self-murder he speaks with a sort of re- 
spectful pity, observing that he only knows that the fact 
is unlawful. " But how they shall fare in the other world, 
who, upon such great accounts, are tempted, is one of 
God's secrets which the great day will manifest. 55 

In the same chapter is an injudicious attempt to justify 
the supposed fraud of the children of Israel, in borrow- 
ing jewels of the Egyptians, without any intention of re- 
storing them. He justifies the action by saying, that God 
commanded the Israelites so to spoil their enemies. But 
this it only removing the imputation from the Israelites 
to the Almighty ; and though the Almighty may dispose 
of the property of his creatures as he pleases, it is not to 
be supposed that he would command any set of men to 
obtain their neighbour's goods by fraud. The true an- 
swer seems to be that which is given by Michaelis ; that 
though God knew that the Israelites would not return ; 
and though he had communicated a share of his own pre- 
science to Moses, yet the Israelites in general, as they 
had only asked for a short holiday from their toil, so they 
never expected or intended more, till the Egyptians, by 
thrusting them out of the land first, and afterwards by 
pursuing them with hostile intentions, had deprived them- 
selves of all claim to whatever property they had previ- 
ously intrusted to them. 

He has mis-stated the story in ancient Spanish history, 
of the princes of Lara or Carion, and the daughters of the 
Cid Rodrigo of Bivar. The princes fought, not one with 
another, but both of them against two of the kindred of 
the Cid, and were beaten, as they well deserved. This 
is, however, a trifle, and the wonder is, rather, than in so 
multifarious reading, and amid references to all writers and 
languages, his facts are so generally accurate. 

In discussing Laws of Tribute, though, when just, he 
allows them to be binding on the conscience of the sub- 
ject, and to oblige him not only to a passive but an ac- 
tive obedience, he stoutly inveighs against the oppression 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 307 

frequently practised by sovereigns and senates. But, 
when he arrives at the question of obedience to kings, 
princes, and supreme civil powers, his doctrines are, as 
might be expected from a suffering loyalist of Charles 
the First's day, sufficiently devoted and unqualified. He 
assigns a greater degree of sacredness to kingly than any 
other government ; he misrepresents the monarchy of 
Israel, which was, in fact, the most limited, except the 
Lacedaemonian, of any on record in ancient history; and 
he not only believes the legend of the martyred Thebse- 
an legion, but insists, with much apparent exultation, on 
such an illustrious example of non-resistance. His argu- 
ments are, however, more to to the purpose, when, fol- 
lowing on the same side with Hooker, he justifies the 
power of the civil sovereign over persons and in causes 
ecclesiastical. They are directed both against the Ro- 
man Catholics and the Presbyterians ; and, as well as 
the following chapter on church censures and canons, 
breathe throughout a moderate and Christian spirit, and 
are well calculated to place in their true light those eccle- 
siastical powers, whose thunders sound so formidably in 
the Church of Rome, and against which, even in Pro- 
testant churches, many of the laity are strongly prejudic- 
ed, from a misconception of their limits, of their fitness, 
and their necessity. And I cannot help again observ- 
ing, that here also he speaks as strongly as ever against 
the interference of the civil sword in matters of religion. 
" This power," — he is is speaking of the commission 
given by Christ to his apostles and their successors, — 
" this power and these commissions were wholly minis- 
terial, without domination, without proper jurisdiction, 
that is, without coaction ; it being ivholly against the 
design of the religion that it should be forced, and it 
being far removed from persons so disposed, so employ- 
ed, so instructed, to do it. 55 " And, therefore, one of the 
requisites of a bishop is — c he must be no striker :' — he 
had no arms put into his hand for that purpose ; the 
ecclesiastical state being furnished with authority, but no 
power, ' auctoritate suadenei magis quam jubendi potes- 
tate.' — That which the ecclesiastics can do [in the case 



308 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

of church censures,] is a suspension of their own act, 
not any power over the actions of other men : and there- 
fore, is but an use of their own liberty, not an exercise 
of jurisdiction. He does the same thing in sacraments as 
he does in preaching ; in both he declares the guilty per- 
son to be out of the way to heaven, to be obnoxious to 
the divine anger, to be a debtor of repentance : and in 
refusing to baptize an evil catechumen, or to communi- 
cate an ill-living Christian, he does but say the same 
thing. He speaks in one by signs, and in the other, he 
signifies by words/ 5 "This is 'judicium/ not ' jurisdic- 
tio/ a judging a man worthy or unworthy ; which does 
not suppose a superiority of jurisdiction, but equals do it 
to their equals ; though, in this, the clergy hath a supe- 
riority and a commission from God to do it." Even of 
this moderate and natural right he condemns the public 
exercise, in the case of sovereign princes, who, as it is ob- 
viously unfit to subject them to open reproof or penance ; 
so, when private reproof and private warnings and en- 
treaties have failed, they may, as he conceives, be admit- 
ted, if they command it, to the communion. 

This is, indeed, a difficult question, and one which is 
not likely to be a practical one. A wicked prince is not 
very often a hypocrite, and unless he be a hypocrite, it 
is not probable that he will force himself on rites for 
which he does not care. There is more courage and 
dignity in the conduct of St. Ambrose towards Theodo- 
sius ; there is less danger to the public peace, and an al- 
most equal certainty of obtaining the desired end, in the 
course recommended by Taylor. 

The latter, however, makes another admission, which, 
if his life had been prolonged a few more years, might 
have involved him in a very serious difficulty of con- 
science, and would have divided him, if he had acted on 
it, from all the best and wisest of his own order and reli- 
gion. " The unlawful proclamations and edicts of a true 
prince may be published by the clergy in their several 
charges !" I wish I had not found this in Taylor; and I 
thank heaven that this principle was not adopted by the 
English clergy in 1687. Yet for Taylor many allowan- 






LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 309 

ces may be made, and many excuses offered for this and 
the other ultra-monarchical features of his creed. Ac- 
customed as he was to see and feel all the tyranny which 
then plagued the land, from those who, under the colour 
of freedom, had disturbed and enslaved their country, 
it was hardly to be expected that his attention could be 
equally alive to the possibility of the same evils occurring 
under a legitimate sovereign. And, above all, let it be re- 
membered, that his inclination for absolute monarchy, if it 
were unwise,was,at least,not interested or servile ; that if he 
carried too high the power of a lawful king, it was when 
that lawful king was in exile. The " Ductor Dubitanti- 
um," though published at the moment of the Restora- 
tion, was written and printed while no such event could 
be looked for, and when all that could be gained by an 
unlimited loyalty, was the suspicion or persecution of the 
ruling powers ; imprisonment, fine, and aggravated indi- 
gence. 

In examining the different institutions w T hich are usu- 
ally deduced from apostolical authority, he lays down as 
a general rule, though one, he admits, which can be very 
seldom applicable to practice, and which, without some 
cogent reason, it would be the height of presumption to 
put in force, that institutions merely of apostolical tradi- 
tion, and relating to things in themselves indifferent, may 
be, by the authority of the church, in after times, dis- 
pensed with. This liberty, however, he will not concede 
in the instances of the Lord's day, of the manner of ad- 
ministering the sacraments, or of episcopacy. The first 
he excepts not only on account of the fitness of the day 
itself, but because no other day can be preferred without 
a causeless neglect of apostolic authority ; the others be- 
cause they relate to the ministries of grace which can 
only, under ordinary circumstances, be obtained or hoped 
for, when sought after in the appointed manner. 

To the forty days' Lent, he refuses the character of 
an apostolical institution. He shows, in fact, with great 
learning, and very convincingly, that the primitive Lent 
was not of forty days, but of forty hours, being confined 
to the Friday and Saturday immediately preceding Eas- 

27 



310 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

ter. To the weekly fasts of Wednesday and Friday he 
assigns, however, a much greater antiquity, both being 
named by Clemens Alexandrinus, and Tertullian ; though 
neither can, on competent grounds, be ascribed to any 
commandment of the apostles. 

From some expressions in Rule xv. p. 28, it is evi- 
dent that he regretted, as Wesley afterwards did, the 
discontinuance of the ancient practice of baptizing by 
immersion, and even of dipping three times in honour of 
the Trinity. Like Wesley, he condemns the practice of 
sprinkling altogether, as contrary both to the analogy of 
the ceremony, the apostolic tradition, and the canons of 
the English and Irish church. How, in our climate, and 
with the contrary prejudices of the people, he would have 
settled his dispute with mothers and nurses, it is not very 
difficult to conjecture. The number of those neophytes 
who would be certified " well able to endure immersion," 
would, probably, be very limited. 

Fond as he appears, from many passages in his wri- 
tings, of chanting and psalmody, it may be suspected that 
he had no ear for music. It is singular to compare the 
reluctant permission which he gives to the use of organs 
in church, with the glow of feeling which their majestic 
tones excited in the breast of Milton. 

The Romish prohibition of marriage, and the sacred 
authority assigned by their canonists to the decrees of 
general councils, he exposes with nearly the same argu- 
ments, and an equal show of learning, as we have already 
seen him producing on the same topics in his two " Dis- 
suasives from Popery." 

He closes the fourth chapter with a discussion of the 
case of subscription to ecclesiastical articles and forms of 
confession ; which, he insists with becoming strictness, 
can only be done, in the instance of the English church, 
by those who sign in the sense of the imposers of the 
law, and who sincerely approve of that to which they 
thus express their consent. On the inexpediency of such 
subscriptions, " to any articles which are not evidently 
true and necessary to be professed," he expresses the 
same opinions which he had previously urged in his "Lib- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 311 

erty of Prophesying." — Opinions they are so amiable in 
themselves, and proceeding from a spirit so enlarged and 
so thoroughly Christian, that our respect for the man is 
increased by them, even when we are not convinced by 
his arguments. Yet, it may be thought, as I have al- 
ready endeavoured to show, that a subscription, which 
would admit the Papist, the Protestant, the Arian, and 
the Anabaptist within the walls of the same establish- 
ment, would, in fact, be equivalent to no subscription 
at all ; and that, though men may, beyond a doubt, be 
saved by the profession of the apostles' creed alone, yet 
of those who are to teach others, some further examina- 
tion may well be accounted necessary. After all, Tay- 
lor's strongest arguments, both here and in the " Liberty 
of Prophesying," apply less to such confessions in them- 
selves than to the abuses to which they are liable ; and, 
while the supporters of every confession will plead "that 
it contains, in their opinion, no uncertain or unnecessary 
articles," no Christian, that is worthy of the name, will 
deny what Taylor, in the next place, contends for, " that 
great regard be had, and great ease be done to wise and 
peaceable dissenters." 

His observations on parental authority, and on the "In- 
terpretation, Diminution and Abrogation of Human Laws," 
conclude this part of his subject. 

The former, is, perhaps, overlaid with too much un- 
necessary learning, and with obsolete precedents of the 
power exercised by fathers in the ruder ages of society ; 
and, in the instance of marriage, he gives to parents a 
a control too absolute over their children. 

The latter contains some maxims of great truth and 
practical utility, as where he tells us, "There are some 
tacit exceptions in all laws that would not be tyrannical." 
Again, " When the reason of a law, commanding an ac- 
tion otherwise indifferent, does cease universally, the very 
negative ceasing, passes into the contrary of itself." — 
"The subject may still do it without sin, but the prince 
cannot, without sin, command it to be done, when it is 
to no purpose." This rule, which Taylor applies to the 
trifling and absurd trials of obedience, which some of the 



312 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

modern Romish saints imposed on the monks in their con- 
vents, will apply equally to all cases of obsolete and 
vexatious regulation, such as, for the very love of author- 
ity, are sometimes too dear to men in power. 

There is one passage, however, in this chapter, which 
must not be allowed to escape without strong and unqual- 
ified reprobation. I mean the manner in which he coolly 
instances, and in some degree, even justifies, that horri- 
ble law of the Roman republic, which decreed that if any 
single slave had killed his lord, all the slaves in the house 
should die for it. Had Taylor considered twice, he could 
not have thus expressed himself. But of such hideous 
cruelty and injustice, our detestation ought to be instinc- 
tive and immediate. 

The fourth and last book, which discusses " the na- 
ture and causes of all human actions, good and evil," is, 
perhaps, the ablest part of the work, as it is certainly the 
most generally and practically useful. 

It is divided into two chapters of very unequal length, 
of which the first treats of efficient, the other of final 
causes. 

The former is an illustration and expansion of the prin- 
ciple, that the will of man is the seat of good and evil ; 
and that actions are either good or evil according to the 
intention of the agent. He proves, however, not only 
that an act of the will alone is imputed, both by God 
and man, to good or evil ; but that a virtual and inter- 
pretative consent of the will may make us sharers in the 
action of another; while the involuntary consequences of 
a voluntary action are imputed to us as parts of that ac- 
tion, and as if themselves directly chosen. 

All these propositions, however, he guards with many 
distinctions ; and introduces many interesting discussions 
on the legality of different actions or habits connected 
with, or illustrative of his principles. 

Thus, in his discussion of the rule, that " the virtual 
and interpretative consent of the will is imputed to good 
or evil," besides some curious cases of " ratihabitation 
and confirmation/' he enters into two different inquiries, 
as to the lawfulness of indulging a guest with an excess 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 313 

of wine, ourselves remaining sober ; and whether it be 
lawful to play at cards or dice ? 

The first, as may be believed, he answers with an in- 
dignant negative. The second he treats more tenderly, 
though he nevertheless, inclines to the opinion that all 
playing for money is dangerous, if not unlawful. 

As diminutions of voluntary actions, he reckons igno- 
rance and fear, of which the first, and total and inevita- 
ble, he accounts a perfect annihilation of moral good or 
evil, the second only in those cases where the under- 
standing is overpowered by the immensity of the danger. 

Under the first head, he inquires what those things are 
of which a man may be innocently ignorant ? what de- 
gree of diligence is required to exempt us from the 
charge of wilful or presumptuous ignorance ? what is a 
probable ignorance ? &c. He refuses the name of inno- 
cent ignorance to those professed Christians, who know 
not that which the universal church accounts necessary 
for salvation, though, of disputed points, he allows a man 
to doubt or to be ignorant with impunity. And he inci- 
dentally discusses the responsibility of children, at what 
time and according to what measures good or evil can be 
first imputed to them. Here, also, there are some ex- 
pressions and illustrations which a reader of delicacy will 
wish away ; but the whole work, it may be considered, 
is scarcely such as females, or very young persons, would 
study ; and it is, after all, perhaps, a curse inseparable 
from works of casuistry, that questions of a certain kind 
are always more or less involved in them. 

On the final causes of human actions, (his chapter con- 
cerning which is, in fact, an amplification of the principle 
that " Christiaaity is a religion of motives,") his rules are 
only three : — 1. That, to constitute a good action, the 
means and end must be symbolical. 2. That for actions 
in themselves lawful, secondary motives are allowable, 
3. That we are bound to regard the end and object of 
God's commandments, as well as the action commanded 
in order to the end. 

All these he inculcates with his usual force and elo- 
quence, but they offer nothing which calls for any pecii* 
27* 



314 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D, 

liar comment. He concludes with observing, that, " if 
our actions be designed well, they are likely to end well ; 
for, in the service of God, a golden head shall never have 
the feet of clay. Nomini tuo da gloriam !" 

Many, perhaps the greater part, of his positions are 
illustrated by examples or by apologues ; the former 
chiefly extracted from the volumes of the Roman casu- 
ists, the latter, sometimes, as he tells us in his preface, 
containing real facts, and cases of conscience which had 
fallen under his own knowledge, conveyed under fictitious 
names and circumstances. 

Among the first of these, is the famous story which 
Walpole has worked up into his tragedy of the " Mysteri- 
ous Mother;" the scene of which has been often laid in 
England, and the time a little anterior to the Revolution, 
but which Taylor relates as a Venetian anecdote to be 
found in the writings of Comitolus. He uses it to illus- 
trate the position that, " if an error be invincible, and 
the consequent of the persuasion be consistent with the 
state of grace, the error must rather be suffered than a 
grevious scandal, or an intolerable, or very great inconve- 
nience." And he approves of the conduct of those 
learned and charitable casuists, who, in that case, deter- 
mined to conceal from the young married couple, the 
dreadful and complicated incest of which, by that union, 
they were innocently guilty. 

It is not, however, from casuists or divines that he 
quotes alone. Historians, fathers, rabbies, poets, essay- 
ists, and jesters, are all ransacked for examples or illus- 
trations, and he has given us one tale, not over decent, 
from, as he whimsically calls him, " My Lord Montaigne," 
as well as the celebrated story from the Facetiae of Pog- 
gio, of the Italian robber, who, though his conscience was 
at rest as to the murders he had committed, was inconso- 
lable for having accidently broken his fast in Lent. 

On the whole, the " Ductor Dubitantium" is the work 
of a mind acute, vigorous, and imbued with an extent 
and variety of information which would have overburden- 
ed a meaner intellect, and by which Taylor himself is, 
perhaps, sometimes encumbered rather than adorned. A 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. 315 

mind it is essentially poetical rather than critical, ardent 
in conceptions in themselves are almost always clear, 
though he overlays them not unfrequently with a profu- 
sion of words and metaphors, and though he is apt to 
derive his first principles from springs of action in them- 
selves circumstantial and secondary. But though it of- 
fers in some respects, a less profound and original view of 
human motives than is to be met with in later writers ; 
though its length renders it less readable, and the author's 
anxiety to say every thing on both sides of every ques- 
tion may lead a careless reader sometimes in suspense as 
to his final determination ; it is still a work which few 
can read without profit, and none, I think, without enter- 
tainment. It resembles, in some degree, those ancient 
inlaid cabinets, (such as Evelyn, Boyle, or Wilkins might 
have bequeathed to their descendants,) whose multifari- 
ous contents perplex our choice, and offer to the admira- 
tion or curiosity of a more accurate age, a vast wilderness 
of trifles and varieties, with no arrangement at all, or an 
arrangement on obsolete principles ; but whose ebony 
drawers and perfumed recesses contain specimens of 
every thing that is precious or uncommon, and many 
things for which a modern museum might be searched in 
vain. 

On the two works w r hich conclude the fourteenth vol- 
ume of this collection, I know not that many observations 
are necessary. " The Divine Institution and Necessity 
of the Office Ministerial," enforces the same doctrines, 
and by nearly the same arguments, as have been already 
considered in speaking of his " Episcopacy Asserted." 
The application, however, of those principles is, in this 
place, more general, and levelled rather at those fantastics, 
who, without any ordination, intrude on the ministerial 
office, than against those who reject the apostolic form of 
ecclesiastical government in favour of an aristocracy of 
presbyters. As such, it is, perhaps, better adapted to 
the evils of the present time than the work which I have 
formerly examined. 

On the difficult question of lay-baptism, which natural- 
ly arises from his present subject, he expresses himself 



316 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D,D. 

with a becoming doubt and moderation. The tendency 
of his mind is very plainly to the high-church doctrine, 
not only that the practice is illegal and presumptuous, but 
that the rite thus administered is invalid, and ought to be 
repeated. He admits however, that the general practice 
of all Christian churches has been different, and he joins 
with Augustine, in expressing his own hesitation. "Nes- 
cio an pie repetendum." 

Those who wish to see the difficulty discussed at great- 
er length, or to learn what has been the practical decision 
of the Church of England on this interesting inquiry, will 
find much curious learning and much sound sense in Bing- 
ham's " Scholastic History of Lay Baptism," (published 
in the second volume of his Ecclesiastical Antiquities,) 
and in the excellent " Elucidation of the Common Pray- 
er," by the late learned and amiable Mr- Shepherd. In 
his "Essay on Confirmation," it is remarkable that Tay- 
lor himself has varied from his severer opinion, and as- 
sents, apparently to the usual and ancient principle of 
"Fieri non debuit, factum valet." 

His " Rules and Advices to the Clergy" are in a great 
degree, extracted from his two Sermons already noticed 
on " The Minister's Duty in Life and Doctrine." They 
are methodised however, and in some instances, enlarged 
and rendered more practical. They can hardly be read 
too often, or, with the necessary allowance for some diff- 
erence of circumstances between Ireland and England, 
and between the seventeenth and the nineteenth century, 
be too carefully or too closely followed. 

The " Golden Grove" begins with a short and simple 
catechism for young persons, but neither so short, so sim- 
ple, nor so complete, as that which our liturgy supplies. 
It has the merit, however, of furnishing a more detailed 
explanation of some important circumstances in our reli- 
gion, than a more general and complete system of instruc- 
tion could contain with the necessary regard to brevity ; 
and may, therefore, be with advantage used in schools and 
families, conjointly with that of good dean Nowell. 

The exposition of the creed, which follows, deserves 
no higher praise than that of enumerating, under the dif- 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 317 

ferent heads of the old and compendious confession, the 
various items which make up the sum of each. Some- 
times he mistakes, like Doddridge, amplification for ex- 
planation ; and I do not know that a devout Christian 
gains much either of knowledge or edification by having 
the single word " buried," decomposed into a statement 
which tells us how Christ, " that he might suffer every 
thing of human nature, w r as, by the care of his friends 
and disciples, by the leave of Pilate, taken from the cross 
and embalmed, (as the manner of the Jews was to bury,) 
and wrapt in linen, and buried in a new grave hewn out 
of a rock," he. His commentaries, however, on the 
" Holy Ghost,"— the Holy Catholic Church," and " the 
Communion of Saints," as they are more necessary and 
useful, so they are executed with his usual force and doc- 
trinal precision. His " Agenda," too, (though, in some 
particulars, they are too ascetic, and calculated, it may 
he thought, to make men formalists rather than sincerely 
and actively holy,) are, generally speaking, excellent ; 
and his " Postulanda" better still. The " Litanies for 
all things and persons," only rank inferior to that in our 
church service ; and the other prayers, though some of 
them too wordy, are such as can hardly be uttered or 
even read with without exciting a spirit of devotion. 

At the end of the u Golden Grove" are some hymns 
for different festivals, which, had they no other merit, 
would be interesting as the only remaining specimens of 
that which a mind so intrinsically poetical as Taylor's was, 
could effect when he attempted to arrange his concep- 
tions in a metrical from. They are, however, in them- 
selves, and on their own account, very interesting compo- 
sitions. Their metre, indeed, which is that species of 
spurious Pindaric which was fashionable with his comtem- 
poraries, is an obstacle, and must always have been one 
to their introduction into public or private psalmody ; 
and the mixture of that alloy of conceits and quibbles 
which was an equally frequent and still greater defilement 
of some of the finest poetry of the seventeenth century, 
will materially diminish their effect as devotional or de- 
scriptive odes. Yet with all these faults, they are 



318 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

powerful, affecting, and often hramonious : there are 
many passages of which Cowley need not have been 
ashamed ; and some which remind us, not disadvanta- 
geous^, of the corresponding productions of Milton. 

Such is the whole of the second " Hymn for Advent." 
Such, too, is the passage in his " Meditation on Heaven," 
where he describes — 

" That bright eternity. 
Where the great King's transparent throne 
Is of an entire jasper stone: 

There the eye 

O' the chrysolite, 

And a sky 
Of diamonds, rubies, chrysoprase, 
And, above all, Thy holy face, 

Make an eternal clarity. 
When Thou thy jewels dost bind up, that day 

Remember us, we pray, 
That, where the beryl lies, 
And the crystal, 'bove the skies, 
There Thou mayst appoint us place, 
Within the brightness of Thy face ; 

And our soul 

In the scroll 
Of life and blissfulness enroll 
That we may praise thee to eternity !" 

A more regular metre, and words more applicable to 
public devotion, may be found in the " Prayer for Char- 
ity." 

" Full of mercy, full of love, 

Look upon us from above ! 

Thou who taught'st the blind man's night 

To entertain a double light, 

Thine, and the day's (and that thine too ;) 

The lame away his crutches threw ; 

The parched crust of leprosy 

Returned unto its infancy ; 

The dumb amazed was to hear 

His own unchain'd tongue strike his ear : 

Thy powerful mercy did e'en chase 

The devil from his usurped place, 

Where thou thyself shouldst dwell, not he. 

Oh, let thy love a pattern be ; 

Let thy mercy teach one brother 

To forgive and love another ; 

That copying thy mercy here, 

Thy goodness may hereafter rear 

Our souls unto thy glory, when 

Our dust shall cease to be with men." 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 319 

His work on the Psalter has no resemblance to those of 
Hammond, Horsley, or even Home. It merely consists of 
one or more prayers to each psalm,more or less appropriate 
to their respective subjects, and followed by a collection of 
devotions for various occasions. All these last are not 
original ; all, however, are devout and practical, and, in 
the alternations of a regular and systematic piety, may be 
useful. His recommendation, in the preface, of the Psal- 
ter as a guide to, and foundation for, as well as an unfail- 
ing accompaniment of, our daily prayers, is at once char- 
acteristic and sensible, and deserves the serious attention 
of those who have hitherto paid a less habitual deference 
to the most devotional and one of the most instructive 
parts of the sacred volume. 

The " Collection of Offices," was intended as a sub- 
stitute for the Common Prayer, when the use of this 
last was proscribed. As a substitute, it is, certainly, well 
adapted to its end, and this being the case, it is no dis- 
paragement to say, that it falls extremely short of its 
original. There are, however some beautiful prayers in 
the occasional offices, for widows, — the persecuted, — the 
prisoners, — the sick and the lunatic, which are admirably 
qualified to give comfort and relief to the broken heart, 
and may afford very valuable assistance to the clergy in 
the most popular and one of the most important of their 
ministries. The penitential litany, at the end of the 
work, is a striking summary of human crimes and follies. 

The last in date, and one of the best and most useful 
of his devotional works, is his " Worthy Communicant," 
which is, indeed, as its subject required, not only devo- 
tional but practical, and embraces in itself many of the 
same powerful and persuasive arguments against the self- 
flattery of the unrepenting sinner, and the needless ter- 
rors of the scrupulous conscience, which are detailed at 
greater length, and with a larger display of authorities, 
in the controversial and casuistical works which occupy 
the preceding volumes. This, indeed, with the " Holy 
Living and Dying/ 5 may be said to offer a complete sum- 
mary of the duties and specimen of the devotions of a 
Christian ; in which, while no necessary question of prac- 



320 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

tice or piety is passed over, no doubtful or merely con- 
troversial question is admitted. In the lessons which 
flow from this chair, in the incense which flames on this 
altar, the souud of worldly polemics is hushed, the light 
of worldly fires becomes dim. We see a saint in his 
closet, a Christian bishop in his ministry, and we rise from 
the intercourse impressed and softened with a sense how 
much our own practice yet needs amendment, and how 
mighty has been that faith of which these are the fruits, 
that hope of which these are the pledges and preliba- 
tions. 

Of the broader and more general lines of Taylor's lit- 
erary character, a very few observations may be suffi- 
cient. The greatness of his attainments, and the powers 
of his mind, are evident in all his writings, and to the 
least attentive of his readers. It is hard to point out a 
branch of learning or of scientific pursuit to which he 
does not occasionally allude ; or any other of eminence, 
either ancient or modern, with whom he does not evince 
himself acquainted. And it is certain, that as very few 
other writers have had equal riches to display, so he is 
apt to display his stores with a lavish exuberance, which 
the severer taste of Hooker or of Barrow would have 
condemned as ostentatious, or rejected as cumbersome. 
Yet he is far from a mere reporter of other men's argu- 
ments, — a textuary of fathers and schoolmen, — who re- 
signs his reason into the hands of his predecessors, and 
who employs no other instrument for convincing his read- 
ers than a lengthened string of authorities. His familiar- 
ity with the stores of ancient and modern literature is 
employed to illustrate more frequently than to establish 
his positions ; and may be traced, not so much in direct 
citation, (though of this, too, there is, perhaps, more 
than sufficient,) as in the abundance of his allusions, the 
character of his imagery, and the frequent occurrence of 
terms of foreign derivation, or employed in a foreign and 
unusual meaning. 

It is thus that he more than once refers to obscure 
stories in ancient writers, as if they were, of necessity, 
as familiar to all his readers as himself; that he talks of 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 321 

i; poor Attilius A viola," or " the Lybian lion," that 
u brake loose into his wilderness, and killed two Roman 
boys ;" as if the accidents of which he is speaking had 
occurred in London a few T weeks before. It is thus that, 
in warning an English (or a Welsh) auditory, against the 
brief term of mortal luxury, he enumerates a long list of 
ancient dainties, and talks of " the condited bellies of the 
scarus," and " drinking of healths by the numeral letters 
of Philenium's name." It is thus that one of his strang- 
est and harshest similies, where he compares an ill-sorted 
marriage to " going to-bed with a dragon," is the sugges- 
tion of a mind familiar with those Lamice with female 
faces and extremities like a serpent, of whose entice- 
ments strange stories are told in the old dsemonologies. 
And thus that he speaks of the "justice" instead of the 
"juice" of fishes ; of an " excellent" pain ; of the gos- 
pel being preached, not to " the common people," but 
to " idiots ;" and of " serpents" (meaning " creeping 
things,") devouring our bodies in the grave. It is this 
which gives to many of his most striking passages the air 
of translations, and which, in fact, may well lead us to 
believe that some of them are indeed the selected mem- 
bers of different and disjointed classics. 

On the other hand, few circumstances can be named 
which so greatly contribute to the richness of his matter, 
the vivacity of his style, and the harmony of his language, 
than those copious drafts on all which is wise, or beautiful or 
extraordinary, in ancient writers or in foreign tongues; and 
the very singularity and hazard of his phrases have not 
unfrequently a peculiar charm, which the observers of 
a tamer and more ordinary diction can never hope to in- 
spire. 

One of these archaisms, and a very graceful one, is the 
introduction of the comparitive degree, simply and with- 
out its contrasted quantity, of which he has made a very 
frequent use, but which he has never employed without 
producing an effect of striking beauty. 

Thus, he tells us of " a more healthy sorrow ;" of\ y 
" the air's looser garment, or the wilder fringes of the i r ' 
fire ;" which, though in a style purely English, thev 1 

28 



322 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

would be probably replaced by positive or superlative ep- 
ithets, could hardly suffer this change without -a consider- 
able detraction from the spirit and racinessof the sentence. 
The same observation may apply to the use of "preva- 
ricate" in an active sense ; to " the temeration of ruder 
handlings ;" and to many similar expressions, which, if 
unusual, are at least expressive and sonorous, and which 
could hardly be replaced by the corresponding vernacular 
phrases without a loss of brevity or beauty. Of such 
expressions as these, it is only necessary to observe, that 
their use, to be effectual or allowable, should be more 
discreet, perhaps, and infrequent, than is the case in the 
works of Taylor. 

I have already noticed the familiarity which he himself 
displays, and which he apparently expected to find, in an 
almost equal degree, in his readers or hearers, with the 
facts of history, the opinions of philosophy, the produc- 
tions of distant climates, and the customs of distant na- 
tions. Nor, in the allusions or examples which he ex- 
tracts from such sources, is he always attentive to the 
weight of authority, or the probability of the fact alleged. 
The age, indeed, in which he lived, was, in many respects, 
a credulous one. The discoveries which had been made 
by the enterprise of travellers, and the unskillful, and as 
yet immature efforts of the new philosophy, had exten- 
ded the knowledge of mankind just far enough to make 
them know that much yet remained uncertain, and that 
many things were true which their fathers had held for 
impossible. Such absence of scepticism is, of all states of 
the human mind, most favourable to the increase of knowl- 
edge ; but for the preservation of truths already acquired, 
and the needful separation of truth from falsehood, it is 
necessary to receive the testimony of men, however pos- 
itive, with more of doubt than Boyle, Wilkins, or even 
Bacon, appear to have been accustomed to exercise. 

But Taylor was any thing rather than a critical inquir- 
er into facts (however strange) of history or philosophy. 
If such alleged facts suited his purpose, he received them 
without examination, and retained them without scruple ; 
and we therefore read in his works, of such doubtful or 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 323 

incredible, examples as that of a single city containing fif- 
teen millions of inhabitants ; of the Neapolitan manna, 
which failed as soon as it was subjected to a tax ; and of 
the monument " nine furlongs high," which was erected 
by Ninus, the Assyrian. 

Nor, in his illustrations, even where they refer to mat- 
ters of daily observation, or of undoubted truth, is he 
always attentive to accuracy. " When men sell a mule," 
he tells us, " they speak of the horse that begat him, not 
of the ass that bore him." It is singular, that he should 
forget that, of mules, the ass is always the father. What 
follows is still more extraordinary, inasmuch as it shows a 
forgetfulness of the circumstances of two of the most il- 
lustrious events in the Old Testament. " We should 
fight," says he, " as Gideon did, with three hundred har- 
dy brave fellows that would stand against all violence, 
rather than to make a noise with ram's horns and broken 
pitchers, like the men at the seige of Jericho." Had he 
thought twice, he must have recollected that " making a 
noise" was at least one principal part of the service re- 
quired from Gideon's troops, and that the " broken pitch- 
ers" were their property alone, and a circumstance of 
which the narrative of the siege of Jericho affords not 
the least mention. 

An occasional occurrence of such errors is indeed un- 
avoidable ; and, irrelevant as some of his illustrations 
are, and uncertain as may be the truth of others, there is 
none, perhaps, of his readers who would wish those illus- 
trations fewer, to which his works owe so much of their 
force, their impressiveness, and their entertainment. As 
a reasoner, I do not think him matchless. He is, indeed, 
always acute, and, in practical questions, almost always 
sensible. His knowledge was so vast, that on every point 
of discussion he set out with great advantage, as being 
familiar with all the necessary preliminaries of the ques- 
tion, and with every ground or argument which had been 
elicited on either side by former controversies. But his 
own understanding was rather inventive than critical. 
He never failed to find a plausible argument for any opin- 
ion which he himself entertained ; he was as ready with 



324 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 

plausible objections to every argument which might be 
advanced by his adversaries; and he was completely 
master of the whole detail of controversial attack and 
defence, and of every weapon of eloquence, irony, or 
sarcasm, which was most proper to persuade or to silence. 
But his own views were sometimes indistinct, and often 
hasty. His opinions, therefore, though always honest 
and ardent, he had sometimes occasion, in the course c 
his life, to change ; and instances have been already 
pointed out, not only where his reasoning is inconclusive, 
but where positions, ardently maintained in some of his 
writings, are doubted or denied mothers. But, it should 
be remembered how much he wrote during a life in itself 
not long, and, in its circumstances, by no means favoura- 
ble to accurate research or calm reasoning. Nor can it 
be a subject of surprise, that a poor and oppressed man 
should be sometimes hurried too far in opposition to his 
persecutors, or that one who had so little leisure for the 
correction of his works should occasionally be found to 
contradict and repeat himself. 

I have already had occasion to point out the versatil- 
ity of his talents, which, though uniformly exerted on 
subjects appropriate to his profession, are distinguished, 
where such weapons are needed, by irony and caustic 
humor, as well as by those milder and sublimer beauties 
of style and sentiment which are his more familiar and 
distinguishing characteristics. Yet to such weapons he 
has never recourse either wantonly or rashly. Nor do 
I recollect any instance in which he has employed them 
in the cause of private or personal, or even polemical 
hostility, or any occasion where their fullest severity was 
not justified and called for by crimes, by cruelty, by in- 
terested superstition, or base and sordid hypocrisy. His 
satire was always kept in check by the depth and fer- 
vour of his religious feelings, his charity, and his humil- 
ity. 

It is on devotional and moral subjects, however, that 
the peculiar character of his mind is most, and most suc- 
cessfully, developed. To this service he devotes his 
most glowing language ; to this his aptest illustrations : 



LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 325 

his thoughts, and his words, at once burst into a flame, 
when touched by the coals of this altar ; and whether he 
describes the duties, or dangers, or hopes of man, or the 
mercy, power, and justice of the Most High ; whether 
he exhorts or instructs his brethren, or offers up his sup- 
plications in their behalf to the common Father of all, 
— his conceptions and his expressions belong to the lofti- 
est and most sacred description of poetry, of which they 
only want, what they cannot be said to need, the name 
and the metrical arrangement. 

It is this distinctive excellence, still more than the oth- 
er qualifications of learning and logical acuteness, which 
has placed him, even in that age of gigantic talent, on an 
eminence superior to any of his immediate contempora- 
ries ; which has exempted him from the comparative 
neglect into which the dry and repulsive learning of An- 
drews and Sanderson has fallen ; — which has left behind 
the acuteness of Hales, and the imaginative and copious 
eloquence of Bishop Hall, at a distance hardly less than 
the cold elegance of Clark, and the dull good sense of 
Tillotson ; and has seated him, by the almost unanimous 
estimate of posterity, on the same lofty elevation with 
Hooker and with Barrow. 

Of such a triumvirate, who shall settle the prece- 
dence ? Yet it may, perhaps, be not far from the truth 
to observe, that Hooker claims the foremost rank in sus- 
tained and classic dignity of style, in political and prag- 
matical wisdom ; that to Barrow the praise must be as- 
signed of the closest and clearest views, and of a taste 
the most controlled and chastened ; but that in imagina- 
tion, in interest, in that which more properly and exclu- 
sively deserves the name of genius, Taylor is to be placed 
before either. The first awes most, the second convinces 
most, the third persuades and delights most : and, (ac- 
cording to the decision of one whose own rank among 
the ornaments of English literature yet remains to be de- 
termind by posterity,) Hooker is the object of our rev- 
erence, Barrow of our admiration, and Jeremy Taylor of 
our love. 

28* 



NOTES. 



NOTE A. 



Mb. Bonne y supposes him to have been their second son ; but I am 
indebted to the kindness of my friend and connexion, Mr. Julius Hare, 
fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, for the following list, extracted 
from the parish register, which makes it apparent that he had two elder 
brothers, and one elder sister. There are other persons of the same 
name mentioned in the register, but none whom we have any reason to 
suppose connected with the bishop's family. Nor is it quite certain that 
the surname of Nathaniel Taylor's wife is correctly spelled, the writing 1 
in the register being very indistinct. As their first son was named Ed- 
mond, it is probable that the Edmond Taylor entered as churchwarden , 
was Nathaniel's father or near relation. 

" 1589. Edmond Taylor, churchwarden. 

1605. Nathaniel Taylor and Mary Dean, married the 13th of October, 

1606. Edmond Taylor, churchwarden. 

Edmond, son of Nathaniel and Mary Taylor, bapt. August 3. 

1607. Edmond Taylor, buried 22d September. 

1609. Mary Taylor, daughter of Nathaniel and Mary, bapt. 11th 
June. 

1611. Nathaniel Taylor, eon of Nathaniel and Mary, bapt. 8 Decem- 
ber. 

1613. Jeremy Taylor, son of Nathaniel and Mary, bapt. 15 August. 

1616. Thomas Taylor, son of Nathaniel and Mary, bapt. 21 July. 

1919. John Taylor, son of Nathaniel and Mary, bapt. 13 ApriL 

1621. Churchwardens, Tobias Smith and Nathaniel Taylor." 

There are two old houses in Cambridge, which tradition points out 
as claimants for the honour of having been the place of Taylor's birth. 
The preference seems to rest with that which is now the Bull Inn, oppo- 
site Trinity Church. The rival tenement, known by the sign of the 
Wrestlers, in the Petty Cury, is as I am assured, beyond the limits of 
the parish where Jeremy Taylor and his brothers were baptized, where 
his parents were married, and where his father, as above stated, served 
the office of churchwarden. 

NOTE B.' 

The arms are "Ermine, on a chief indented sable, three escallops, 
or ; the crest a lion rampant, issuant, ermine, having between his paws 
a ducal coronet, or." I find in Gwyllim's Heraldry, p. 244, (a book so 



328 NOTES. 

full of odd information and entertainment of a peculiar kind, as almost 
to justify the predilection of Sir Hildebrand Osbaldiston,) that "this 
coat was confirmed to Roger Taylor, son of Thomas Taylor, son of Rog- 
er Taylor, of London, Esquire, by Sir William Segar, Garter, Decem- 
ber 4, 1674, in the 12th year of King James the First." But my in- 
quiries at the heralds' office have not succeeded in tracing any connec- 
tion between this family, and that either of the bishop, or Doctor Row- 
land Taylor. 

NOTE C. 

The account of Rowland Taylor's character and sufferings may be 
found in the Book of Martyrs, p. 155, ed. 1752, and in Wordsworth's 
Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. ii. p. 483. The spot where he suffered on 
Aldham Common was distinguished, in after times, by a rude stone 
with a ruder inscription : — 

" Doctor Taylor, for defending what was good, 
In this place shed his blood." 

This was enclosed with iron rails by David Wilkins, D. D., rector of 
Hadleigh in 1721 — (See Nicholl's Illustrations of Literary History t 
vol. iii. p. 436.) In 1819, a neat obelisk was erected above it by sub- 
scription, with the following spirited lines from the pen of the Rev. Dr. 
Hay Drummond. 

" This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." 



" Mark this rude stone, where Taylor dauntless stood, 
Where zeal infuriate drank the martyr's blood ! 
Hadleigh ! that day how many a tearful eye 
Saw thy loved Pastor dragg'd a victim by ! 
Still scattering gifts and blessings as he past, 
To the blind pair his farewell alms were cast. 
His clinging flock ev'n here around him pray'd, 
* As thou hast aided us, be God thine aid !' 
Nor taunts, nor bribe of mitred rank, nor stake, 
Nor blows, nor flames, his heart of firmness shake ; 
Serene, his folded hands, his upward eyes, 
Like holy Stephen's, seek the opening skies : — 
There, fix'd in rapture, his prophetic sight 
View3 truth dawn clear on England's bigot night. 
Triumphant Saint ! he bow'd to kiss the rod ; 
Then soar'd on seraph wing to meet his God I" 

NOTE D. 

In the note of Jeremy Taylor's admission at Caius College, (see Bon- 
ney, p. 3, 4, note,) his tutor, Bachcroft, represents him as fifteen years 
of age, and as having been, for ten years, under the tuition of Mr. Lov- 
ering. But, in 1626, the year of his entrance, he cannot have been 
more than thirteen, and he is represented as no more by his friend and 
encomiast Bishop Rust. It is probable, therefore, that his parents, in 
order to facilitate his becoming a member of the university, represent- 
ed him as older than he really was, and as having attended school long- 
er than he could have done with any advantage. Hence, however, a 
degree of uncertainty has attached itself to his age ; and Sir Jame» 



NOTES. 329 

Ware, in the Catalogue of Irish Bishops, has supposed him, at the 
time of his death, to have been two years older than he really can have 
been. 

NOTE E. 

In the " Pietas Puerilis" of Erasmus, the young* scholar is made to 
say, "Adornata parentibus mensa, recito consecrationem, deinde, pran- 
dentibu3 ministro, donee jubeor et ipse prandium sumere." 

NOTE F. 

The archbishop's letter of recommendation is as follows : It has been 
already published by my friend Mr. Bliss, in his excellent edition of the 
Athenae Oxonienses, art". Taylor, p. 782, vol. iii., from Tanner's MSS. in 
the Bodleian. A copy, also, corresponding* exactly with this, is in the 
archives of All Souls. 

" To the Warden and Fellows of All-Souls Coll., Oxford. 
Salutem in Christo. 

" These are on the behalf of an honest man and a good scholar : Mr. 
Osborn, being* to g*ive over his fellowship, was with me at Lambeth, 
and, I thank him, freely proffered me the nomination of a scholar to 
succeed in his place. Now, having* seriously deliberated with myself 
touching* this business, and being* willing* to recommend such an one to 
you as you mig*ht thank me for, I am resolved to pitch upon Mr. Jere- 
miah Taylor, of whose abilitys and sufficiencys every ways I have 
received very g*ood assurance. And I do hereby heartily pray you to 
g-ive him all furtherance by yourself and the fellows at the next elec- 
tion, not doubting* but that he will approve himself a worthy and learn- 
ed member of your society. And, though he has had his breeding, for 
the most part, in the other university, yet I hope that shall be no preju- 
dice to him, in regard that he is incorporated into Oxford, (ut sit eodem 
ordine, gradu, &c.,) and admitted into University College. Neither can 
I learn that there is any thing in your local statutes against it. I doubt 
not but you will use him with so fair respects, as befits a man of his 
rank and learning, for which I shall not fail to give you thanks. So I 
leave him to your kindness, and rest 

" Your loving friend, 

"William Cant." 

" Lambeth House, October 23, 1635." 

My authority for the account I have given of the proceedings of the 
College, in consequence of this letter, is a certificate signed " William 
Page," contained in a note to a MS. copy of the statutes of All Souls, 
with many marginal observations, which formerly belonged to warden 
Gardiner, and is now kept in the warden's lodgings as an heir-loom. 
Page gives the account nearly a3 I have stated it, and vouches from his 
own knowledge, (he having been a fellow of the college at the time,) 
that the fellows were "almost unanimous in their election of Taylor," 

The William Page, whose narrative this is, was a person of some 
reputation among his contemporaries. He became a fellow of All 
Souls, 1619. and was afterwards, through the patronage of Laud, rec- 
tor of Reading school, and of East Locking near Wantage. He wrote, 
among other things, a Treatise on Bowing at the Name of Jesus, which 
archbishop Abbot commanded him to suppress ; but which Laudj oa 



330 NOTES. 

succeeding' to the primacy, encouraged him to publish. — Wood, Athene 
vol. ii. p. 332. ed. p. 1721. 

The nomination of Taylor to the fellowship, on its devolving, as I 
have stated, to the visitor, has been also published both by Mr. Bliss 
and Mr. Bonney. 

" Nominatio Jer. Taylor ad locum Socii in Coll* Omn. Anim. Oxon. 

"Gulielmus Providentia Divina Can. Archiep'us, totius Anglise Pri- 
mas & Netropol. necnon Universitatis Oxon. Cancellar. Collegiique An- 
imarum Omnium fidelium defunctorum de Oxon Visitator, Patronus et 
Ordinarius. Dilectis nobis in Christo, Custodi, Vice-custodi, omnibus- 
que et singulis dicti Collegii Sociis et scholaribus, salutem et gratiam. 
Cum locus Socii Artista Collegii vestri dudum vacaverit, et vacuus est 
in prsesenti, cumque potestas suppledi deficientem numerum Sociorum 
vestrorum nobis per statuta vestri Collegii sit reservata, ratione negli- 
g"entice vestrse. eo quod dictus locus Socii vacantis, infra dies in statutis 
Collegii vestri limitatos, per vos non fuerit perimpletus. Nos numerum 
Sociorum vestrorum, secundum potestatem a Fundatore vestro nobis 
commissam implere volentes, Jeremiam Taylor ad dictum locum va- 
cantem designamus vobis, mandantes ut pra^fatum Jeremiam Taylor 
ad dictum locum vacantem secundum formam statutorum Collegii 
vestri recipiatis et admittatis. In cujus rei testimonium, sigillum nos- 
trum Archiep'ale pra?sentibus apponi fecimus. Dat.' in manerio nostro 
de Lambehith, vicesimo primo die mensis Novembris, anno D'ni 1635, 
et nostrse trans, anno tertio." 

In consequence of this mandate, Taylor was admitted, as appears by 
the college book, where he is described as " Jeremias Taylor, Dioc. 
Elie. Artium Mag. 1636. Jan. 14." It is remarkable, that both he and 
two others who were admitted at the same time, are described as ad- 
mitted, "in veros et perpetuos Socios." But, to become an actual fel- 
low, in the first instance, without a previous year of probation, is a priv- 
ilege peculiar to founder's kin. How Taylor came by it I am ignorant. 
If I could trace his descent to any of the families connected with the 
stock of Chichele, it would sufficiently confirm my hypothesis of his 
gentility. But on this point I am without information. 

NOTE G. 

"Then followed the charge of Sancta Clara's book, alias Mounsieur 
St. Giles : so they expressed it, and I must follow the way they lead 
me. First then, they charge that / had often conference with him while 
he was writing his book entitled 'Deus, Natura Gratia.' No ; he never 
came to me till he was ready to print that book. Then some friends of 
his brought him to me. His suit then was, that he might print that 
book here. Upon speech with him, I found the scope of his book to be 
6uch, as that the Church of England would have little cause to thank 
him for it : and so absolutely denied it. Nor did he ever come more at 
me after this, but twice or thrice at most, when he made great friends to 
me, that he might print another book to prove that bishops are by divine 
right. My answer then was, that I did not like the way which the 
Church of Rome went in the case of episcopacy. And, whosoever, that 
I would never give way that any such book should be printed here from 
the pen of a Romanist, and that the bishops of England were able to 
defend their own cause and calling, without calling in aid from Rome ; 
and would in due time. Maintenance he never had any from me, nor 
did I then know him to be a priest. Nor was there any proof so much 
as offered in contrary to any of this." — Laud's Troubles and Trial, 
p. 385. 



NOTES. 331 

For the manner of Davenport's introduction to Laud by Lindsell, seo 
Canterbury's Doom, p. 427 ; quoted in the Athense Oxonienses, vol. iii. 
col. 1223. 

NOTE H. 

" Quotidianis eorum quos Regise commendarent liters ad gradum 
quemcunque promotionibus lassata demum Universitas, frequentem 
vicesimo primo Feb. Senatum coegit, in quo Vicecancellarii & Praefeo- 
torum libellus supplex, Regi contra gradus temere et quasi fortuito 
conferendos porrigendus, recitatur. Hi vero damna nobis necessario 
facienda Carolo ob oculos ponebant. Actibus utique et Exercitiis qui- 
busque Scholasticis in desuetudinem abeuntibus, vel etiam omnino de- 
letis, srarium academicum exinanitum fore, restinctis quoque magno- 
rum ingeniorum studiis summa Universitatem infamia laboraturam 
edocentes. Accepto autem supplici illo Togatorum libello, tunc quidem 
ostendit Rex quam vere et animitus bonarum literarum curam ageret. 
Quamvis enim et opibus et authoritate haud adeo abundanti percom- 
modum videretur fidem suorum et officia honoribus togatis remunerare, 
statuit tamen et edixit nequis Gradum Academicum in questum am- 
biens literas suas commendatrices deniceps expectaret ; quod, si cui- 
quam concederentur, ad locum inter Academicos quern expeteret habi- 
lem sese et idoneum secundum Statuta probaret, cautionem de prsa- 
standis exercitiis interponeret, et feuda consueta persolveret; aliter 
nullam literarum. suarum habendam esse rationem." — Wood, Hist, et 
Ant. Ox. ann. 1642 1. i. p. 359. 

NOTE L 

" I had no books," says Taylor, "of my own here, nor any in the 
voisinage ; and but that I remembered the result of some of those excel- 
lent discourses I had heard your Lordship make, when I was so happy 
as, in private, to gather up what your temperance and modesty forbids 
to be public, I had come ' in prcelia inermis,' and like enough, might 
have fared accordingly." — Epistle Dedicatory to the Liberty of Proph- 
esying, vol. vii. p. cccxcvii. For the encouragement and assistance 
afforded by Hatton to Dugdale, see Wood. Athen, ii. Fasti, p. 92 ; and 
Dugdale's Dedication to the Antiquities of Warwickshire. Hatton's 
loyalty and attachment to the Church of England have been never im- 
peached. — Of the first, the Letter from King Charles, published by Mr. 
Bonney, is an evidence ; as is also the sequestration of his estate by the 
Parliament in 1649. — Whitelock. p. 125. The latter was shown by the 
pains which he took in frustrating the attempt of Queen Henrietta Ma- 
ria to bring over the Duke of Gloucester to popery. — See Clarendon, 
Hist. Reb. iii. 426 ; and Carte, Life of Ormond, ii. pp. 264, 167— 8. It 
is something remarkable, that none of Taylor's biographers have noticed 
a passage in his claim kindred with Hatton. He there " entreats his 
lordship to account him in the number of his relatives.^ This is a very 
unusual expression, if he meant by it no more than "friends" or "de- 
pendants ;" and the word " relative" is elsewhere employed by Taylor 
in its usual and modern acceptation. The family of Taylor himself is 
involved in so mnch obscurity, that it is hopeless to inquire whether or 
at what period his ancestors had become connected with those of his 
patron. But the connexion (though it would, in this case, hardly 
amount to relationship,) may have been through one of his wives ; 
though on this point also I am without information. 



332 NOTES. 



NOTE J. 



The first edition of this work is in 12mo, entitled, "The Psalter of 
David, with Titles and Collects according- to the matter of each Psalm. 
By the Right Honourable Christopher Hatton. Oxon. 1644." The 
same work occurs in Royston's Catalogue at the end of " The Great 
Exemplar, Lond. 1653." And the "Fifth edition, with additionals," is 
mentioned in the catalogue of the same bookseller, appended to the 
2vf.i%oXov H6ixo~tcoZsiliixov, Lond. 1657. 

In both cases it is said to be by the Right Honourable Christopher 
Hatton ; and accordingly it is regarded as his work by both Wood and 
Collins. The preface, however, and many of the prayers, bear evident 
marks of Taylor's characteristic and inimitable workmanship. And 
at length, in the eighth edition enlarged, published by Royston in 1672, 
the name of Hatton is omitted, and that of " Jer. Taylor, D.D. Chap- 
lain to King Charles 1st. of blessed Memory," is inserted in its place. 
— To these facts nothing can be opposed but the assertion in the preface, 
that its author did not "wait at the altar." But, if the work were de- 
signed to pass for Hatton's, such an expression is no more than we 
should expect to find ; and the authenticity of the volume is now, in- 
deed, very generally acknowledged. 

For most of the facts contained in the above note, I have again to 
acknowledge my obligations to Mr. Bonney's manuscript information. 

NOTE K. 

William Nicholson was the son of Christopher Nicholson, a rich 
clothier of Stratford, near Hadleigh, Suffolk. He was brought up as 
a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was afterwards bi- 
ble clerk, and, eventually, became tutor to the Lord Percy, and chaplain 
to his father the Earl of Northumberland. In 1616, he was elected 
master of the free-sehool at Croydon, where his discipline and powers 
of instruction were much celebrated. He resigned this situation in 
1629, when he obtained the rectory of Llandilo Vawr, in Caermarthen- 
shire ; to which were afterwards added the dignities of residentiary of 
St. David's and archdeacon of Brecknock. In 1643, he was named as 
one of the assembly of divines at Westminister, probably by the interest 
of the earl of Northumberland ; but he never took his place among 
them, and his livings being shortly after sequestered, he again taught 
school for his maintenance, in which way of life he continued "till 
the Restoration. 

In 1660-1, he was appointed bishop of Gloucester, by the interest of 
Lord Clarendon, whom Wood insinuates that he had bribed. But as 
his character appears to have stood high with all parties, and as he had 
a strong and legitimate claim on the patronage of government, for his 
unshaken loyalty, and bold and pertinacious defence of the church dur- 
ing its most helpless and hopeless depression, it seems most reasonable, 
as well as most charitable, to ascribe his preferment rather to his merits 
than to simony. He died Feb. 5, 1671, and was honoured with the fol- 
lowing epitaph by the excellent George Bull, afterwards Bishop of St. 
David's. 

"^Eternitati S. In spe beatse resurrectionis, hie reverendas exuvias 
deposuit Theologus insignis, Episcopus vere primitivus, Gul. Nicholson, 
in agro SurTolciano natus, apud Magdalenses educatus, ob fidem Regi 
et Ecclesiaj afflictae prsestitam, ad sedem Glocestrensem merito promotus, 



NOTES. 333 

amno 1660. In concionibus frequens, in scriptis nervosus, legenda 
scribens, et faciens scribenda. Gravitas Episcopalis in fronte emicuit, 
pauperibus quotidana charitate beneflcus, comitate erga cleruin et lib- 
eratos admirandus, gloria? ac dierum satur, in palatio suo, ut vixit, pie 
decessit, Feb. 5, Anno a-tatis LXXII. Dom. MDCLXXI. Elizabetha 
conjux prseivit, in hoc sacello sepulta, Apr. XX. An. Dom. MDCLXIII. 
Owenus Brigstock de Lechdenny in comitatu Caermarthen, Armiger, 
pra^dicta? Elizabetha? nepos, hoc grati animi monumentum, (executore 
recusante,) propriis sumptibus erexit. An. MDCLXXIX." 

Bishop Nicholson's published works, of which a catalogue is given 
by Wood, are all of a practical and useful character. That he was 
joined, for a time at least, with Taylor in his school at Newton, ap- 
pears from the following epitaph which Mr. Bonney has published, and 
to which I have already alluded in the text : 

MS. 

" Griffini Lloyd, de Cwimgwilly, Armigeri, qui, honestis parentibus 
Llanarthneise natus, literarum tyrocinia posuit sub summis viris Gul. 
Nicholsono, Ep. postea Glocestrensi, et Jer. Tayloro Ep. Dunensi, 
qui grassante Cromwellii tyrannide, in hac vicinia victum querita- 
bant." — Bonney, p. 175. 

William Wyat, Taylor's other associate in this undertaking, was born 
at Todenham, in Gloucestershire ; and, after some delay in obtaining 
his degrees at Oxford, through the calamities attendant on the civil 
war, became B. D. Sept. 12, 1661. On leaving Newton Hall, he taught 
at Evesham, in Worcestershire ; and, afterwards, was assistant in a 
private school at Twickenham, kept by William Fuller, afterwards 
Bishop of Lincoln. Under his patronage he was installed prebendary 
of Lidington. May 13, 1668, and precentor of Lincoln Cathedral, No- 
vember 6th of the same year. The latter dignity he resigned in 1681, 
but retained the prebend till his death, which took place in the house 
of Sir Richard Newdigate, at Nuneaton, in Warwickshire. He was 
buried at Astley, in the same county, where, over the communion-ta- 
ble, is a small marble tablet, with the following quaint inscription : 

P.M. 

" Gulielmi Wyat, S. T. B. quern ad ecclesia Lincoln, (ubi Prsecen- 
tor erat meritissimus,) hue traxit quietis studium et honoratse juxta de 
Arburia familise vicinitas et patrocinium, quibus frui camera omnia 
lubens desereret. Obiit 9 Septembris, 1685, in magna sua climacteria, 
et quia, uti vixerat, sic moreretur, omnibus numeris absolutus. 

<Z>iXoTiusioQai riOvxaQtiv" 

Bonney, MS. p. 44. Browne Willis, Hist, of 
Cathedrals , vol. ii. pp. 89, 211. 

For Sir John Powell's epitaph I am indebted to his descendant, the 
Reverend Mr. Evans, of Newton Hall, in the county of Montgomery. 

M. S. 

Johannis Powell, Equitis Aurati, 
Qualis fuerit, non ab exiguo Monumenti marmore, 
Sed ab annalibus Regni Historicorum Libris 
29 



334 NOTES. 

Quseras edoceri. — Bonas Artes, quibus sub optimo Prseceptore, 

(Jeremia Taylor) postero Episcopo Dunensi, 

A prima Juventute enutritus erat, 

In academia dehinc Oxoniensi, feliciter excoluit. 

Inde (quanquam Literis humanioribus dedito 

Ruri eleganter delitescere, 

Qua? erat ejus modestia, magis allubescerat,) 

Patriae tamen sese deberi ratus, 

Nodosis Degem Vinculis implicari 

Et in Ferro splendescere 

maluit. 

Et dummodo prodesset 

Conspici non gravatus est. 

Honores itaque nunquam solicitus petiit, 

Ultro ad se delatos saepissime detrectavit. 

Utrumque Tribunal, 

Banci Regis et Communium Placitorum 

Judex, adornavit. 

Magni Sigilli Custodiam 

Non dubitavit recusare, 

Omni scilicet Titulo superior. 

Q,uam strenuus Ecclesiae Defensor fuerit, 

Testis si septem Apostolici Prsesules 

Q,uos ob Christi Fidem fortiter vindicatam 

Ad ipsius Tribunal accitos 

Intrepidus absolvit. 

Hinc a Justiciaria Cathedra honoriflce dejectus 

Non multo post, mutatis Regni Rebus, 

Eandem iterum implevit. 
Tandem Laborious quos tulit plurimos, 

Dum Patriae consuleret, 

Afflicto cuique et oppresso subveniret, 

Teneretque Legum et Monarchic Dignitatem. 

Fractus decessit, 

AnnoD. 1696, wt. 63. 

Sir John Powell's dignified conduct on the trial of the seven Bishops 
is well known. Its merit is enchanced, if the tradition of his family, 
and of this Epitaph, be correct, that he was offered the great seal, if he 
would pursue a different course. 

NOTE L. 

" ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE UNDER THE LONG 

PARLIAMENT. 

"Because ye have thrown off your prelate Lord, 

And with stiff vows renounc'd his liturgy, 

To seize the widow' d whore Plurality 

From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorr'd, 

Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword, 

To force our consciences whom Christ set free, 

And ride us with a Classic hierarchy, 

Taught you by mere A. S. and Rutherford ? 

Men whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent, 

Would have been held in high esteem by Paul, 

Must now be nam'd and branded heretics 



NOTES. 335 

By shollow Edwards and Scotch What-d'ye-call. 

But we do hope to find out all your tricks, 

Your 'plots and packings, worse than those of Trent ; 

That so the Parliament 
May, with their wholesome and preventive shears. 
Clip your phylacteries, though baulk your ears, 

And succour our just fears, 
When they shall read this plainly in your charge, 
New Prebyster is but old Priest writ large." 

- I can hardly think that Goodwin and Peters, the principal individu- 
als who shared with Taylor the indignation of Rutherford and the 
Presbyterians, were men whom Milton, so ordinaruV sparing of his 
praise, could have extolled as those whom St. Paul would have " held 
in high esteem." But Taylor was, beyond all comparison, the most 
illustrious champion of those tolerating doctrines for which Milton 
himself so nobly contended, and I cannot help supposing that his name 
was in the poet's mind, when he was thus assailing their common ad- 
versaries. 

Rutherford's work i3 perhaps the most elaborate defence of persecution 
which has ever appeared in a Protestant country. He justifies it from 
the law of nature, the Mosaic law, the analogy of the Christian Reli- 
gion y the practice of the patriarchs and godly princes of old time ; the 
prophecies which fortell that the kings which have sometimes served the 
Babylonian harlot shall, on their repentance, burn her with fire, and eat 
her flesh; and the commandment of St. John, that a true believer is not to 
say God speed to a false teacher. They who condemn the burning of 
Servetus would have condemned, he tells us, on the same principles, 
the slaughter of the priests of Baal ; and, though he seems, in one 
place, to have some compunctious doubts as to the propriety of fire as 
an instrument of conversion, and, on the whole, to give the prefer- 
ence to hanging, yet he elsewhere urges that, as stoning was the 
punishment of idolatry under the Mosaic law, and as the despisers of 
the gospel are, unquestionably, worthy of a much sorer punishment, — 
so it may be thought that burning hath something in it marvellously 
suited to the occasion and to the necessities of Christendom. To in- 
vade a foreign nation of idolaters with a view to apply such instru- 
ments and means of grace, he, indeed, confesses to be of doubtful 
morality ; but it may be, he says, a most interesting and curious ques- 
tion, whether, such a conquest having been effected on other grounds, 
it is not the duty of the believing conqueror to force away the children 
of his new subjects, to the end that they may be brought up in the true 
religion 1 Such were the sentiments, and so far as they had the power, 
the practice of Rutherford himself ; of Mather, who pulished, about the 
same time, a pamphlet entitled " The Tenet of Persecution washed 
White in the Blood of the Lamb ;" and of many others, who, when 
their own hour of trial and suffering came, were ready enough to ac- 
cuse their adversaries of unchristian and inhuman severity. The argu- 
ments of Rutherford are not likely in the present day to make many 
converts to his opinion. But, if there are any who, from the confidence 
with which he urges the example of the ancient Jewish kings and 
prophets, are led to form opinions unfavourable to a religion with which 
our own is so closely connected, they may do well to read the Commen- 
taries of Michaelis on the Laws of Moses, book v. chap. 2.; in which 
the nature of the practices forbidden by the Jewish legislator, and 
the manner in which his prohibitions differ from persecution in its 
true and odious sense, are clearly and powerfully stated. I will only 



336 NOTES. 

add, that where murder or lust are parts of any religious system, the 
actions, being- in themselves offences against the peace of society, are 
clearly punishable, without examining- further into the mistaken no- 
tions from which they spring : and such was the case with the super- 
stitions of Canaan. 

NOTE M. 

The picture of these two ladies are still at Golden Grove, and in good 
preservation. That of the first displays a countenance marked with all 
the goodness and benignity which might be expected from the charac- 
ter which Taylor gives her ; the second has a much more lofty and 
dignified air, such as might become the heroine in Comus. The first 
lady Carbery left three sons and six daughters. Her eldest son, Fran- 
cis lord Vaughan, married Rachel, daughter of Thomas Wriotheseley, 
earl of of Southampton, who survivied her husband, and afterwards 
became conspicuous in English history as the heroic wife and widow of 
William lord Russell. A copy of Taylor's Essay on Repentance, pre- 
sented to her by the author, is now in the possession of the Rev. Dr. 
Swire, of Melsonby, near Richmond, Yorkshire. 

. From Mr. Bonney's MS. Notes, and information supplied by arch- 
deacon Benyon. 

NOTE M.* 

"The calamities which lately arrived you, came to me so late, and 
with so much incertitude during my long absence from these parts, that 
till my returne, and earnest inquisition, I could not be cured of my 
very greate impatience to be satisfied concerning your condition. But 
so it pleased God, that when I had prepared to receive that sad newes, 
and deplore your restraint, I was assured of your release, and delivered 
of much sorrow. It were imprudent, and a character of much igno- 
rance, to inquire into the cause of any good man's suffering in these 
sad tymes : yet, if I have learned it out, twas not of my curiosity ; but 
the discourse of some with whom I have had some habitudes since my 
coming home. I had read the preface long since to your ' Golden Grovef 
remember and infinitely justifie all that you have there asserted. 3 Tis 
true vallor to dare to be undon, and the consequent of truth hath ever 
been in danger of his teeth, and it is a blessing if men escape so in 
these days, when not the saftiest onely, but the soules of men are betray- 
ed : whilst such as you, and such excellent assistances as they afford us, 
are rendered criminal and suffer. But you, Sir, who have furnished 
the world with so rare precepts against the efforts of all secular disas- 
ters whatsoever, could never be destitute of those consolations which 
you have so charitably and so piously prescribed unto others : yea, 
rather, this has turned to our im'ensc advantage, nor lesse to your glory, 
whilst men behold you living your owne institutions, and preaching to 
us as effectualy in your chaines as in the chaire, in the prison as in the 
pulpit : for me thinkes, Sir, I heare you pronounce it, as indeede you 
act it — 

" Aude aliquid brevibus gyaris et carcere dignum 
" Si vis esse aliquis 

"that your example might shame such as betray any truth for feare of 
men, whose mission and com'ission is from God. You, Sir, know in 
the general, and I must justifie in particular, with infinite cognition, 
the the benefit I have received from the truths you have delivered. I 



NOTES. 



337 



have perused that excellent { Unum Necessarium' of yours to my very 
greate satisfaction and direction : and do not doubt but it shall, in tyme, 
gaine upon all those exceptions, which I know you are not ignorant, 
appeare against it. 'Tis a great deale of courage, and a great deale of 
perill, but to attempt the assault of an error so inveterate. 

"Aide r.Eivai [xerhu] xoiOeig toy aniqarov -oddv. False opinion 
knows no bottome, and reason and prescription meet in so [Quaere no?] 
fewe instances ; but certainly you greately vindicate the divine good- 
nesse, which the ignorance of men, and popular mistakes, have so long 
charged with injustice. But, Sir, you must expect with patience the 
event, and the fruites you contend for : as it shall be my dayly devo- 
tions for your successe, who remaine, 

Reverend Sir, &c. 

"Say's Court, 9 Feb. 1654." "JOHN EVELYN." 

Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 97. 

On this letter the editorof the intersting work whence it is extracted 
observes, " The cause of his [Jeremy Taylor's] imprisonment does not 
appear." Surely the passage here marked in italics intimates it with 
sufficient clearness. In the preface to his " Golden Grove," there are 
in fact, many passages at which the government were likely to take um- 
brage. "The people," says the author, "are fallen under the harrows 
and saws of impertinent and ignorant preachers, who think all religion 
is a sermon,and all sermons ought to be libels against truth and old 
governors, and expound chapters that the meaning may never be un- 
derstood, and pray that they may be thought able to talk, but not to hold 
their peace, they casting not to obtain any thing but wealth and victo- 
ry, power, and plunder." "They that hate bishops have destroyed 

monarchy, and they that would erect an ecclesiastical monarchy must 
consequently subject the temporal to it ; and both one and the other 
would be supreme in consciences, and they that govern there with an 
opinion that in all things they ought to be attended to, will let their 
prince govern others, so long as he will be ruled by them." 

" If any man shall not decline to try his title by the word of God, it is 
certain there is not in the world a better guard for it than the true pro- 
testant religion, as it is taught in our church. But let all things be as 
it pleases God, &c. &c." 

I am aware that in all these expressions Taylor might plead that he 
meant no more than to recommend his sect to the toleration or protec- 
tion of the ruling powers. But even a less jealous party than the Pres- 
byterians, and a less arbitrary governer than Cromwell, might, in such 
times, find it necessary to notice them. 

The above letter, it will be observed, is dated in 1654. It is certain, 
however, either that Evelyn has written 4 for 5 by mistake, or that he 
has, in this instance, followed a practice (at that time not uncommon in 
England, but of which his other letters give us no example,) of recon- 
ing the beginning of each year from Lady Day, so that the months of 
January Febuary, and March, down to the 25th, were ascribed to the 
preceding year. This space was generally dated 165 4-5, &c. : but 
sometimes also with the date of the preceding year only. And it ie 
certain that the letter in question cannot have been written before 1655, 
from his assertion that he had " long since read the preface to the { Gol- 
den Grove,' and had now seen the ' Unum Neeessarium.' " But, on 
consulting the Books of Stationers' Hall, I find that of these works the 

* Golden Grove' was only entered there on Jannary 26, 165 4-5, and the 

* Unum Nese3sarium ' not till the 3d of May following. It i3 true, 

29* 



338 NOTES. 

indeed, and we must bear it in mind, in order to account for the fact of 
his having- seen these works at all, that the entrance of a work at Sta- 
tioners' Hall, is not necessarily or usually immediate on its first publi- 
cation. But many months are seldom allowed to elapse before this pre- 
caution is taken ; and we may, therefore, fix the appearance of the 
1 Golden Grove ' at the beginning of January, and the { Unum Neces- 
sarium' somewhat later in the same month. For the former, indeed, it 
would be desirable if an earlier date could be fixed, both in order to 
render Evelyn's long* aquaintance with it a less improper mode of 
speaking", and to give time for Taylor's consequent imprisonment. 
And I am, therefore, inclined to apprehend that, although the first edi- 
tion of the c Golden Grove' is dated in 1655, it was nevertheless, pub- 
lished in Michaelmas term, ' 1654. I am informed by a learned friend, 
whose familiarity with the curiosities of English literature has been 
rarely surpassed or equalled, that " the custom of antedating new books 
is still practised pretty extensively, and it was equally common in Tay- 
lor's day. Among Anthony -a- Wood's books are (I should think) more 
than an hundred, on which the honest antiquary hath written, ' This 
booke came out (on such a day,) though it be dated (at such a time.') 
And it is not impossible that the ' Golden Grove' might have been in a 
similar predicament. If this be allowed, and we conclude, as I think 
we well may, that Evelyn's letter was not written till 1655, there will 
remain a period of between four and six months, which would be quite 
sufficient to allow Evelyn's long familiarity with the preface." ■ 

NOTE N. 

u April 15, 1654. I went to London to hear the famous Dr. Jeremy 
Taylor, (since bishop of Down and Connor,) at St. Greg, on 6 Matt, 
48. concerning evangelical perfection." 

" March 18, 1655. Went to London on purpose to heare that excel- 
lent preacher, Dr. Jeremy Taylor, on 14 Matth. 17; shewing what were 
the conditions of obtaining eternal life ; also concerning abatements for 
unavoidable infirmities, how cast on the accompt of the crosse. On the 
31st I made a visit to Dr. Jer. Taylor, to confer with him about some 
spiritual matters, using him thenceforward as my ghostly father. 1 
beseech God Almighty to make me ever mindful of and thankful for his 
heavenly assistances." — Evelyn's Memoirs^ vol. i pp.273 — 293. 

NOTE O. 

Rev. Sir, 

"It was another extraordinary charity which you did me when you 
lately relieved my apprehensions of your danger by that which I just 
now received : and, though the general persecution reinforce ; yet it is 
your particular which most concerns me in this sad catalysis and de- 
clension of piety to which we are now reduced. But, Sir, what is now 
to be done that the starrs of our bright hemisphere are every where 
pulling from their orb3 1 I remember where you have sayd it was the 
harbinger of the greate day, and a very sober and learned person, my 
worthy friend, the great Oughtred, did the other day seriously persuade 
me 'parare in occursum, 5 and will needs have the following yeares pro- 
ductive of wonderfull and universal changes. What to say of that I 
know not : but certaine it is we are brought to a sad condition. I 
speak concerning secular yet religious persons ; whose glory it will be 
a lie buried in your ruines, a monument too illustrious for such as I 



NOTES. 339 

«,m. For my part, I have learned from your excellent assistances to 
humble myselfe, and to adore the inscrutable pathes of the Most High : 
God and his truth are still the same, though the foundations of the 
world be shaken. Julianus Redivivus can shut the schooles indeede, 
and the temples ; but he cannot hinder our private intercourses and 
devotions, where the breast is the chappell and our heart is the altar. 
Obedience founded in the understanding will be the onely cure and 
retraite. God will accept what remaines, and supply what is necessary. 
He is not obliged to externals, the purest ages passed under the crud- 
est persecutions : it is sometymes necessary : and this, and the fulfill- 
ing of prophecy, are all instruments of greate advantage (even whilst 
they presse, and are incumbent) to those who can make a sanctified use 
of them. But as the thoughts of many hearts will be discovered, 
and multitudes scandaliz'd ; so are there divers well-disposed per- 
sons who will not know how to guide themselves, unlesse some 
such good men as you discover the secret, and instruct them how 
they may secure their greatest interest, and steere their course 
in this darke and uncomfortable weather. Some such discourse 
would be highly seasonable now that the daily sacrifice i3 ceasing, 
and that all the exercise of your functions is made criminal, that the 
light of Israel is quenched. Where shall we now receive the viati- 
cum with safety? How shall we be baptiz'd? For to this passe it 
is come, Sir. The comfort is, the captivity had no temple, no altar, no 
king. But did they not observe the passover, nor circumcise? Had 
they no priests and prophets amongst them 7 Many are weake in the 
faith, and know not how to answer, nor whither to fly : and if upon the 
apothesis of that excellent person, under a malicious representation of 
his martyrdom, engraven in copper, and sent me by a friend from 
Bruxelles, the Jesuite could so bitterly sarcasme upon the embleme : 

'Projicis inventum caput, Anglia [Angla?] Ecclesia! caesura 
Si caput est, salvum corpus an esse potest V — 

how thinke you will they now insult, ravage, and break in upon the 
flock ; for the shepheards are smitten, and the sheepe must of necessity 
be scattered, unlesse the greate Shepheard of soules oppose, or some 
of his delegates reduce and direct us. Deare Sir, we are now prepar- 
ing to take oar last farewell (as they threaten) of God's service in this 
citty, or any where else in publique. I must confesse it is a sad con- 
sideration ; but it is what God sees be3t, and to what we must submitt. 
The comfort is, ' Deus providebit.' Sir, I have not yet been so happy 
as to see those papers which Mr. Royston tells me are printing, but I 
gTeately rejoyce that you have so happily fortified that batterie, and I 
doubt not but you will maintaine the siege : for you must not be dis- 
couraged for the passions of a few. Reason is reason to me wherever 
I find it, much more where it conduces to a designe so salutary and 
necessary. At least, I wonder that those who are not convinced by 
your arguments, can possibly resist your charity, and your modesty : 
but as you have greatly subdued my education in that particular, and 
controversy ; so am I confident tyme will render you many more pros- 
elytes. And if all do not come so freely in with their suffrages at first, 
you must, with your accustomed patience, attend the event. 

" Sir, I beseech God to conduct all your labours, those of religion to 
others, and of love and affection to me, who remayne, 

" Sir, your, &c. 

Lond. 18 Man [qu. Mai ?] 1655." . 

Evelyn's Memoirs^ vol. ii. p. 98, 



340 NOTES. 

The above letter, as it now stands, is dated Mar. 18, 1655. But, on 
that day, as appeared by the preceding- extract from his diary, Evelyn 
had attended Taylor's preaching-. The devout laity of the episcopal 
church were, therefore, not at that time deprived of the means of 
grace in the manner which this letter deplores. Nor does it seem like- 
ly that a letter of such a length, and written in such a manner, would 
be addressed to a person with whom the writer expected shortly to 
communicate personally, or with whom he had shortly before commu- 
nicated. Again, when he speaks of having received assurances of 
Taylor's safety, — when he talks of being buried in his ruins, &c. he 
6eems to imply that Taylor was then actually in prison, or in some ur- 
gent and great danger. And, further, on the 31st of March, Taylor 
and Evelyn had another interview. Then, therefore, if such a letter 
had passed between them a few days before, was the time for Taylor to 
give an answer to the wish expressed in it. We find, however, that 
this letter remained unanswered till January in the following year, 
since this is clearly the one referred to in Taylor's letter of this last 
date, inasmuch as he there speaks of " the vile distich on the departed 
saint." I am, therefore, of opinion that here again, as well as in the 
former letter, the date has been incorrectly given, and that we should 
not read March, but May, by which time, it is extremely probable that 
Taylor's imprisonment at Chepstow may have commenced. 

It may be observed, that the passage in Taylor's works, to which 
Evelyn refers, in which the calamities of the time were said to be 
"harbingers of the great day," is, probably, to be met with in hi3 
<( Episcopacy xlsserted," (vol. vii. p. 5 ) where he suggests, "that the 
abolition of episcopacy is the forerunner and preparatory to the great 
apostacy." The Oughtred, who expressed the same opinion, was Wil- 
liam Oughtred, author of the " Clavis Mathematica," and other works, 
and the most illustrious geomitrician of his time. The church of Eng- 
land was, undoubtedly, in 1655, exposed to fresh and bitter persecu- 
tions, of which an interesting account will be found in the following 
extract from Parr's life of Usher : — 

" Cromwell being now [in 1655] highly enraged against the loyal par- 
ty, for their indefatigable though unsuccessful endeavours for his Maj- 
esty's restoration to his throne, after he had showed himself very im- 
placable and severe to the cavalier gentry, as they then called them, 
began now to discharge part of his rage upon the orthodox clergy, for- 
bidding them, under great penalties, to teach schools, or to perform 
any part of their ministerial functions : whereupon some of the most 
considerable episcopal clergy, in and about London, desired my lord 
primate that he would use his interest with Cromwell, (since they heard 
he pretended a great respect for him,) that, as he granted liberty of con- 
science to almost all sorts of religions, so the episcopal divines might 
have the same freedom of serving God in their private congregations, 
since they were not permitted the public churches, according to the lit- 
urgy of the church of England ; and that neither the ministers, nor 
those that frequented that service, might be any more hindered or dis- 
turbed by his soldiers. So, according to their desires, he went and 
used his utmost endeavours with Cromwell for the taking off this re- 
straint, which was at last promised, (although with some difficulty,) 
that they should not be molested, provided they meddled not with any 
matters relating to his government. But, when the lord primate went 
to him a second time, to get this promise ratified and put into writing, 
he found him under his chyrurgeon's hand, who was dressing a great 
boyl which he had on his breast ; so Cromwell prayed the lord primate 
to sit down a little, and that when he was dressed he would s peak with 



NOTES. 341 

him. Whilst this was a doing-, Cromwell said to my lord primate, if 
this core (pointing- to the boyl) were once out, I should quickly be well ; 
to whom the g-ood bishop replied, 'I doubt the core lies deeper, there is 
a core at the heart that must be taken out, or else it will not be well. 5 
' Ah !' replyed he, seeming unconcerned, [Quaere concerned ?] ■ so there 
is indeed !' and sighed. But when the lord primate began to speak to 
him concerning- the business he came about, he answered him to this 
effect, that he had since better considered it, having- advised with his 
council about it, and that they thought it not safe for him to grant lib- 
erty of conscience to those sort of men, who are restless and implaca- 
ble enemies to him and his g-overnment ; and so he took his leave of 
him, thoug-h with g-ood words and outward civility. The lord primate. 
6eeing- it was in vain to urg-e it any farther, said little more to him, but 
returned to his lodging-, very much troubled and concerned that his 
endeavours had met with no better success. When he was in his 
chamber, he said to some of his relations and myself that came to see 
him, ' This false man hath broken his word with me, and refuses to per- 
form what he promised. Well, he will have little cause to giory in his 
wickedness, — he will not continue long-. The king will return. Thoug-h 
I shall not live to see it, you may. The g-overnment, both in church 
and state, is in confusion. The Papists are advancing- their projects, 
and making such advantages as will hardly be prevented.' " — Parr's 
Life of Usher, p. 75. 

NOTE P. 

"12 April, 1656. Mr. Berkley and Mr. Robert Boyle, (that excellent 
person and great virtuoso,) Dr. Taylor and Dr. Wilkins, dined with 
me at Saye's Court, when I presented Dr. Wilkins with my rare burn- 
ing- g-lasse. In the:afternoone we all went to Colonel Blount's, to see his 
new invented plows." 

" 6th May. I broug-ht Mons. le Franc, a young- French Sorbonist, a 
proselyte, to converse with Dr. Taylor, They fell to dispute on original 
sin, in Latine, upon a book newly published by the Doctor, who was 
much satisfied with the young man." 

" 7th. I visited Dr. Taylor, and prevailed on him to propose Mons . 
le Franc to the bishop, that he might have orders : I having sometime 
before, brought him to a full consent to the church of England, her doc- 
trine and discipline, of which he had till of late made some difficulty ; 
so he was this day ordained both deacon and priest, by the bishop of 
Meath. I paid the fees to his lordship, who was very poor and in greate 
want. To that necessity were our clergy reduced !" — Evelyn's Me- 
moirs, vol. i. pp. 298, 299. 

What bishop it was whom Evelyn describes as the bishop of Meath, 
I cannot conjecture. Certain it is that there was no bishop of that see 
at this time, the last. Dr. Anthony Martin, having died in great pover- 
ty at Dubiin, in the year 1650, and his see not being filled up till after 
the restoration. Ware, Hist, Ireland, vol. i. p. 158. £d. Harris. 

NOTE Q. 

As the little tract in question is extremely scarce, I have subjoined 
some extracts, which will give the reader an idea of the manner in which 
the dialogue is carried on between the lady who inveighs against, and 
her who justifies face-painting. In the frontispiece to the second edi- 
tion, these two disputants are represented, — the one prim, stern, and 
plainly apparelled : the other, in the style of Lely's portraits, patched , 



342 



NOTES. 



her hair in ringlets, with naked shoulders, a fan in her hand, and so far 
as the artist was able, beautiful. The grim Lady begins the conversa- 
tion. 

" Madam, — I am not more pleased to see you look so well, beyond 
what you were wont, than I am jealous (to be free with you) lest a per- 
son so esteemed as you are for modesty and piety, should use some col- 
our or tincture to advance your complexion ; which indeed, I take to 
be no better than that'odiousand infamous way of painting, every where 
in all ages s.o much and so justly spoken against, both by God and good 
men ; being a most ungodly practice, though generrally (as they say) 
now used in England (more or less) by persons of quality, who, not con- 
tent with nature's stock of beauty, do (not by a fine, but filthy art) add 
something to the advantage, as they think, of their complexions ; 
but I fear to the deforming of their souls, and defiling of their conscien- 
ces. 

"Truly, madam, I absolutely think (without any mincing or distinc- 
tion) all colour or complexion added to our skins and faces, beyond 
what is purely natural, to be a sin, as being flatly against the word of 
God, which I suppose you grant to be the indispensable and unchange- 
able rule of all moral holiness, from which we may not warp in the least 
degree upon any pretensions to advance our honours, estates, healths, 
or beauties. First then if your ladyship look into 2 Kings, ix. 30, you 
shall see wicked Jezebel, though a queen, yet not tolerated or excused, 
but fouly branded and heavily punished for painting, her eyes or face, 
for which she was afterwards, by a most deformed destiny, justly de- 
voured of dogs : as the most reverend lord primate of Armagh observes, 
in his larger catechism upon the seventh commandment. Which fear- 
ful stroke of divine vengeance, and censure of so learned and pious a 
person, (making that her painting a most meritorious and principal 
cause of her so sad destiny,) are sufficient I think, to scare the most 
adventurous woman from any such sinful and accursed practice." 

This is wretched work — but these are some of the arguments of the 
beaten party. Let us now examine the other side. What follows is as 
favourable a specimen as I can find : and is certainly, not without wit, 
but I cannot persuade myself that it resembles the style of Jeremy Tay- 
lor. 

" When was your ladyship scandalized with any grave and sober 
matron, because she laid out the combings or cuttings of her own or 
others more youthful hair, when her own (now become withered and 
autumnal) seemed less becoming her ? How many both men's and 
women's warmer heats in religion, do now admit not only borders of 
foreign hair, but full and fair peruques on their heads, without sindg- 
ing one hair by their disputative and scrupulous zeal, which in these 
things of fashion, is now grown much out of fashion ? Your ladyship's 
charity doth not reprove, but pity, those poor Vulcanists, who balance 
the inequality of their heels or badger legs, by the art and help of the 
shoemaker : nor are those short legged ladies, thought less godly who 
fly to chopines, and by enlarging the phylacteries of their coats, con- 
ceal at once, both their great defects in native brevity, and the enormous 
additions of their artificial heights, which make many small women 
walk with as much caution and danger almost, as the Turk danceth on 
the ropes. Who ever is so impertinent a bigot, as to find fault when the 
hills and dales of crooked and unequal bodies are made to meet without a 
miracle, by some iron bodice, or some benign bolsterings ? Who fears to 
set straight, or hide the unhandsome warpings of bow-legs, and baker-feet7 
What is there as to any defect in nature, whereof ingenuous art as a 
diligent handmaid waiting on it3 mistress, doth not study some supply 



NOTES. 343 

or other, so far as to graft" in silver plate3 into cracked sculls, to furnish 
cropt face3 with artificial noses, to fill up the broken ranks and routed 
files of the teeth with ivory adjutants. Yet against all or any of these 
and the like reparative inventions, by which art and ingenuity studies 
to help and repair the defects or deformities, which God, in nature, of 
providence, is pleased to inflict upon our bodies, no pen is sharpened, 
no pulpit is battered, no writ of rebellion, or chrrge of forgery and 
false coinage, is brought against any in the court of conscience ; no 
poor creature (who thankfully embraceth, modestly useth, and with 
more cheerfulness serveth God, by means of some such help, which 
either takes away its reproach, or easeth its pain,) is scared with dread- 
ful scruples, or so terrified with the threatenings of sin, hell, and dam- 
nation, as to cast away (much against their wills) that innocent suc- 
cour, which God in nature and art had given them ; from which they 
part with as much regret as the poor man did from his darling lamb, 
which the rich man's insolence, not his indigence, not hi3 want, but 
wantonness, forced from him. Rather we are so civilly pious in these 
cases, as to applaud others, no less than please ourselves in those happy 
delusions, whereby we conceal, or any way compensate these our de- 
formities or defects in any kind, which seem to us less convenient, or 
to others less comely, in this our mortal and visible pilgrimage. Only 
if the face (which is the metropolis of humane majesty, and as it were 
the cathedral of beauty, or comliness, in the little world or polity of our 
bodies,) if this have sustained any injuries (as it is most exposed to 
them) of time, or any accident ; if it stand in need of any thing that 
our charity and ingenuity in art can help it to, though the thing be 
never so cheap, easie, and harmless either to enliven the pallid dead- 
ness of it, and to redeem it from 'mortmain, or to pair and match the 
inequal cheeks to each other, when one is as Rachel, the other as Leah, 
or to cover any pimples and heats, or to remove any obstructions, or to 
mitigate and quench excessive flushings, hereby to set off the face to 
such decency and equality as may innocently please ourselves and oth- 
ers, without any thought to displease God, (who looks not to the out- 
ward appearance, but to the heart,) what censures and whispers, yea, 
what outcries and clamours, what lightnings and thunder, what ana- 
themas, excommunicationSj and condemnations, fill the thoughts, the 
pens, the tongues, the pulpits of many angry (yet it may be well mean- 
ing) Christians, both preachers and others, who are commonly more 
quick-sighted and offended with the least mote they fancie of adding to a 
lady's complexion, than with many camels of their own customary opin- 
ions and practices 7 Good men, though in other things not only of the 
fineness and neatness, but even of some falsity and pretension, they are 
so good-natured and indulgent as to allow their lame or their crooked 
wives and daughters, whatever ingenuous concealments and repara- 
tions, art and their purses can afford them ; yet as to the point of face- 
mending, they condemn them, like Paul's church, to sink under ever- 
lasting ruines. The most of your plainer breed, and as it were home- 
spun professours and preachers, who never went far beyond their own 
houses, can with less equal eyes behold any woman, of never so great 
quality, if they see or suspect her to be adorned any whit beyond the 
vulgar mode, or decked with feathers more gay and goodly than those 
birds use, which are of their own countrey nest. In which cases of 
feminine dressing and adorning, no casuist is sufficient to enumerate, or 
resolve the many intricate niceties and endless scruples of conscience, 
which some men's and women's more plebeian zelotry makes, as about 
ladies cheeks and faces, if they appear one dram or degree more quick 
and rosie than they were wonted ; so about the length and fashion of 



344 NOTES. 

their clothes and hair. One while they are so perplexed about the curl- 
ing of ladies' hair, that they can as hardly dis-intangle themselves as a 
bee entangled in honey ; otherwise they are most scrupulous mathemati- 
cians to measure the arms, wrists, necks and trains of ladies,how far they 
may safely venture to let their garments draw after them on the ground, 
or their naked skins be seen. Here, however, some men can bear the 
sight of the fairest faces, without so much as winking, (where the great- 
est face of beauty is displayed,) yet they pretend that no strength of 
human virtue can endure the least assaults, or'peepings of naked necks, 
if they make any discovery or breaking forth below the ears. Not that 
any modest mind pleads for wanton prostituting of naked breasts, 
where the civiller customs of any countrey forbid it ; but some men's 
rigour and fierceness is such, that if they espy any thing in the dress 
clothes, or garb of woman, beyond what they approve, or have been 
wonted to, presently the taylors, the tire-women, the gorget-makers, the 
seamstresses, the chamber-maids, the dressers, and all that wretched 
crew of obsequious attendants, are condemned as anti-christian, and 
only fit to wait upon the whore of Babylon. Nor do the poor ladies 
(though otherwise young and innocent, though as vertuous as hand- 
some, or if possibly elder, every way exemplary for modesty, gravity, 
and chastity, yet they do not) without great gifts and presents (as by 
so many fines and heriots,) redeem themselves from some men's severe 
censures ; and if they do take any freedom to dress and set forth them- 
selves after the best mode and fashion, it costs them as much as the 
Roman captain's freedom did him ; when indeed they are (as St. Paul 
pleaded) free-born, not only in nature, but as to grace and the new 
birth, which is no enemy to what fashion's modesty may bear, and 
which decency, civility, and custom, do require." 

The " Turk" mentioned in the above quotation, was, no doubt, a rope- 
dancer of that nation, mentioned by Evelyn as " the famous funamble 
Turk," who appears to have been allowed to exhibit his talents during 
the commonwealth, notwithstanding the prohibition of most public 
amusements. 

NOTE R. 

"25 March, 1657. Dr. Taylor shewed me his MSS. of Cases of 
Conscience, or Ductor Dubitantium, now fitted for the presse. 

" 7th June. My fourth sonn was borne, christened George, after my 
grandfather ; Dr. Jer. Taylor officiating in the drawing-room. 

"July 16. On Dr. Jer. Taylor's recommendation, I went to Eltham, 
to help one Moody, a young man, to that living, by my interest with 
the patron." Vol. i. pp. 304, 305, 306. 

NOTE T. 

'"He [Heneage Finch, afterwards earl of Nottingham,] had a brother, 
named Francis Finch ; bred up also under E. Silvester, who was after- 
wards a Gent. Comm. of Balliol Coll., but leaving it without a degree, 
went to London, studied the law, and became a barrister of one of the 
temples ; but, before he had long practised, he died, yet lives still in 
those several pieces of ingenuity he left behind him, wherein he falls 
not short of the best poets. And because Poeta est Jirritimus Oratori, 
he might have proved excellent in that too, having so incomparable a 
precedent as his brother, Sir Henage Finch. Among the several spe- 
cimens of his poetry which I have seen, is a copy of verses before Will. 
Cartewright's poems, an. 1651, as there is of his brother John : another 



NOTES. 345 

before a book entitled Aires and Dialogues for one, two, and three voices, 
Lond. 1653, fol. published by Hen. Lawes. In the body of which book 
he hath a poem, entitled Ccelia singing, to which the said Lawes com- 
posed an air of two parts to be sung", &c." — Fasti, vol. ii. p. 59. 

Mr. Finch's Discourse on Friendship, is not mentioned by A. Wood, 
any more than that on Honour, both which, however, are extolled by 
Orinda, in her address (Poems, p. 19) " to the noble Palsemon on his in- 
comparable Discourse of Friendship :" and her description of "Mr. 
Francis Finch, the excellent Palsemon," (ib, pp. 91, 93.) 

" 'Twas he that rescued gasping Friendship, when 

The bell toll'd for her funeral with men ; 

'Twas he that made friends more than lovers burn, 

And then made love to sacred friendship turn ; 

'Twas he turn'd Honour inward, set her free 

From titles and from popularity. 

Now fix'd to virtue, she begs praise of none, 

But witness' d and rewarded both at home." 

NOTE U. 
"TO THE LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER.* 
« Sib, 
"I should begin with the greater agologie for this addresse, did not 
the consideration of the nature of your greate employment and my feares 
to importune them carry with them an excuse which, I have hope to 
believe, you will easily admit. But as it is an errour to be trouble- 
some to great persons upon trifling affaires, so were it no less a crime 
to be silent in an occasion, wherein I may do an act of charity, and 
reconcile a person to your good opinion, who has deserved so well, and 
1 thinke is so innocent. Sir, I speake in behalfe of Dr. Taylor, of 
whom I understand you have conceived som edispleasure for the mistake 
of his printer, and the readiest way that I can thinke of to do him 
honour and bring him into esteeme with you, is to beg of you that you 
will please to give him leave to waite upon you, that you may learn 
from his owne mouth, as well as the world has done from his writings, 
how averse he is from any thing that he may be charged withall to his 
prejudice, and how greate an adversary he has ever bin, in particular, 
to the Popish religion, against which he has employed his pen so sig- 
nally, and with such successe. And, when, by this favour you shall 
have don justice to all interests, I am not without faire hopes, that I 
shall have mutually obliged you both by doing my endeavour to serve 
my worthy and pious friend, and by bringing so innocent and deserving 
a person into your protection ; who am, 

" Sib, &c." 

" From Greenwich, 14 Jan. 1756-7." 

" Feb. 25, 1658. Came Dr. Jeremy Taylor and my brothers, with 
other friends, to visite and condole with us." 

" March 7. To London to hear Dr. Taylor in a private house, on 

* "This was written for another genlteman, an acquaintance with 
the villain who was now lieut. of the Tower ;— Baxter, by name, for I 
never had the least knowledge of him."— Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. i. 
p, 112. 

30 



346 NOTES. 

xiii. Luke, 23, 24. After the sermon followed the blessed communion, 
of which I participated. In the afternoon. Dr. Gunning-, at Excester 
house, expounding" part of the creede."— Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 
312. 

It is singular that, in the minutes of the privy council, which have 
been examined for me by the kindness of my valued friend, H. Hob- 
house, Esquire ; no traces appear of any order for Taylor's imprison- 
ment, or his appearance before them, either on this occasion, or when 
he was confined in the castle at Chepstow. For this omission it is not 
easy to account. How a supposed state criminal could be put in con- 
finement without such an order appearing- is not plain, unless we sup- 
pose that, in those arbitrary times, the committees and inferior agents 
of the g-overnment exercised the power of imprisonment. It is, indeed, 
noticeable that Evelyn's letter is addressed to the Lieutenant of the 
Tower himself, and that he speaks of Taylor as having- incurred his 
displeasure, as if he had been the cause of his imprisonment as well as 
the keeper of his prison. In the Tower, however, whose records have 
been also consulted, no warrants or commitments are preserved of a 
date anterior to the Restoration. 

NOTE V. 

Had Taylor forgotten the testimony of Heg-esippus, concerning- the 
grand-children of St. Jude, the last survivors of the house of David, 
and, after the flesh, the kinsmen of our Lord, who were examined and 
dismissed without injury by Domitian } See Rowth, Reliquire Sacra?, 
vol. i. p. 196. I would rather believe that he had forgotten the story, 
than that he regarded as fabulous a narative so probable in itself and 
so apparently authentic. 

NOTE W. 

Taylor alludes to the following passage from the neglected work of 
Thomas Aquinas, which may serve, at least, as a specimen of those 
subtleties which once exercised the best wits in Christendom. The 
practice of Aquinas must be borne in mind ; that, namely, he states the 
arguments on both sides, and then moderates between them, 

qu^sstio i. art. 4. 

" Utrum Angeli diferant in specie." 

" Ad quartum sic proceditur. Videtur quod Angeli non differant in 
specie. Cum enim differentia sit nobilior genere, qusecunque conven- 
iunt secundum id quod est nobilissimum in eis, conveniunt in ultima 
differentia constitutione, et ita sunt eadem secundum speciem. Sed 
omnes .Angeli conveniunt in eo quod est nobilissimum in eis, — s. in in- 
tellectualitate. Ergo omnes Angeli sunt unius speciei. Prreterea ma- 
gis et minus non diversificant speciem. Sed Angeli non videntur dif- 
ferre ab invicem nisi secundum magis et minus : prout scilicet unus 
aliis est simplicior et perspicacioris intellectus. Ergo Angeli non dif- 
ferunt specie. Prreterea anima et angelus ex opposito dividuntur : 
sed omnes anima? sunt unius speciei, ergo et Angeli. Prseterea quanto 
aliquid est perfectius in natura, tanto magis debet multiplicari. Hoe 
autem non esset si in una specie esset unum tantum individuum. Ergo 
multi Angeli sunt unius speciei. Sed contra est, quod in his qua? sunt 
unius speciei, non est invenire prius et posterius, ut dicitur in 3 metaph. 
Sed in Angelis etiam unius ordinis sunt primi et medii et ultimi, ut 



notes. 347 

aicit Dion. 10 C. angelicoe hierar. Ergo Angeli non sunt unius speciei. 
Gonclusio. — Cum omnes spirituales substantia? ex materia et forma 
composite non sint, ejusdem non sunt speciei. Respondeo dicendum, 
quod quidam dixerunt omnes substantias spirituales esse unius speciei 
etiam animas. Alii vero quod omnes Angeli sunt unius speciei sed non 
animae. Q,uidem vero quod omnes Angeli unins hierarchiae, aut etiam 
unius ordinis. Sed hoc est impos3ibile. Ea. n. quae conveniunt specie 
et differant numero, conveniunt in forma, sed distinguuntur materiali- 
ter. Si erg*o Angeli non sunt compositi ex materia et forma ut dictum 
est supra : sequitur quod impossible sit esse duos angelos unius spe- 
ciei, sicut etiam impossibile esset dicere quod essent plures albedines 
separate aut plures humanitate3 cum albedines non sint plures, nisi 
secundum quod sunt in diversis substantiis. Si tamen Angeli haberent 
materiam, nee sic tamen possunt esse plures Ang*eli unius speciei. Sic 
enim oporteret quod principium distinctionis unius ab alio esset materia, 
non quidem secundum divisionem quantitatis, cum sint incorporei, sed 
secundum diversitatem potentiarum. Quae quidem et diversitas ma- 
teria causat diversitatem non solum speciei sed et generis. Ad primum 
ergo dicendum quod differentia est nobilior genere, sicut determinatum 
indeterminato et proprium communi, non autem sicut alia et alia na- 
tura. Alioquin oporteret quod omnia animalia irrationalia essent 
unius speciei, vel quod esset in eis aliqua alia perfect] or forma quam 
anima sensibilis. Differunt ergo specie animalia irrationalia secundum 
diversos gradus determinates naturae sensitivae. Et similiter omnos 
Angeli differunt specie secundum diversos gradus naturse intellectivae. 
" Ad secundum dicendum, quod magis et minus secundum quod cau- 
santur ex intentione et remissione unius formse, non diversificant specie. 
Sed secundum quod causantur ex formis diversorum,graduum sic diver- 
sificant speciem : sicut si dicamus, quod ignis est perfectior sere. Et 
hoc modo Angeli diversificantur secundum magis et minus. Ad terti- 
tum dicendum quodbonum speciei praeponderat bono individui. Unde 
multo melius est quod multiplicentur species in Angelis, quam quod ' 
multiplicentur individua in una specie. Ad quartum dicendum quod 
multiplicatio secundum numerum cum in infinitum protendi possit, non 
intenditur ab agenti, sed sola multiplicatio secundum speciei ut supra 
pictum est. Unde perfectio naturse Angelica} requirit multiplicationem 
specierum, non autem multiplicationem individuorum in una specie." 
— S. Thom. Aquin. Summa Totius Theologies, pars i. p. 97. 

NOTE X. 

These facts appear from a letter of Lord Conway's, dated June 15, 
1658, of which the following is an extract. It is addressed to Major 
George Rawdon, who had married his sister, and who, from his resi- 
dence and influence in Ireland, might materially contribute to the ful- 
filment of Lord Conway's wishes. It should seem that Major Rawdon 
had, in answer to a previous application, given a discouraging account 
of the state of the country. 

" Dear Brother, 

" That which you writ me in your letter of the 2d of this month, , 
concerning Dr. Taylor, was sufficient to have discouraged him and all 
his friends from any further thoughts of that country ; but I thank 
God, I went upon a principal not to be repented of, for I had no interest 
or passion in what I did for him, but rather some reluctancy. What I 
pursued was, to do an act of piety towards him, and an act of piety to- 



344 NOTES. 

wards all such as are truly disposed to virtue in those parts, for I am 
certain he is the choicest person in England appertaining- to the con- 
science, and, let others blemish him how they please, yet all I have 
written of him is true. He is a man of excellent parts and an excellent 
life ; but in regard that this is not powerful to purchase his quiet, I 
shall tell you what is done in relation to that. Dr. Petty hath written 
by him to Dr, Harrison and several others, and promist to provide him 
a purchase of land, at great advantage, and many other intimate kind- 
ness, wherein your advice will be askt. Dr. Cox, a physician, and a 
very ingenious man, who hath married the chancellor's sister, hath 
written on his behalf very passionately, and some of as near relation to 
my Lord Peepes hath recommended him to him. Serjeant Twisden, 
one of the eminentest lawyers in England, who married Sir Matthew 
Tomlinson's sister, hath written to him very earnestly, and so hath his 
wife also. Mr. Hall, an understanding man, and always one of the 
knights for Lincolnshire, hath recommended him to his friend Mr. 
Bury, and so hath Mr. Bacon, one of the masters of request, don for 
him to my Lord Chief Baron. But, besides all this, my Lord Protector 
hath given him a pass and a protection for himself and his family, un- 
der his sign manual and privy signet. So that I hope it will not be 
treason to look upon him and to own him. Dr. Loftus is his friend. 
I have sent you and my sister a box of pills, by Dr. Taylor, of the same 
proportion as that I sent last summer. 

Your affectionate brother, 
"Kensington, June 15, 1658." " E. CONWAY." 

NOTE Y. 

Edwards, in his GangrEena, speaks of the Perfectists or Perfection- 
ists in the same category with the most detested heretics of his time. 
" All the sects, yea, the worst of them, as the Antiscripturists, Arians, 
Anti-trinitarians, Perfectists, being Independents and Separatists. 5 * 
The Dr. Gell, who appears to have favoured them, was, probaoly, 
" Robert Gell, D. D. of Pampisford in Cambridgeshire, Rector of St. 
Mary, Aldermary, and sometime chaplain to the archbishop of Canter- 
bury, which docter died in the very beginning of the year, (twenty- 
fifth March or thereabouts,) 1665." — Athence Oxon. vol. iii. col. 562. 

NOTE Z. 

"I received a letter yesterday from Dr. Taylor : it hath almost brok- 
en my heart. Mr. Tandy hath exhibited articles against him to the 
lord deputy and council, so simple, (as colonel Hill writes,) that it is 
impossible it should come to any thing : the greatest scandal being, 
that he christend Mr. Bryer's child with the sign of the cross. I have 
written to Hyrne to supply him with money for his vindication, as if it 
were my own business. I hope, therefore, when you come over, you 
will take him [Tandy] off fro me persecuting me, since none knows bet- 
ter than yourself whether I deserve the same at his hands. I would 
have sent you the Doctor's letter to me, but that I know not whether 
this will ever come to you. The quarrel i3, it seems, because he thinks 
Dr. Taylor more welcome to Hillsborough than himself. 

"Kensington, June 14, 1659." "E. CONWAY." 

To this same conduct of Tandy's Lord Conway elsewhere alludes 
with a similar resentment ; " Mr. Tandy may have enough of these 



NOTES. 349 

[Anabaptists and Quakers] to set himself against, without troubling his 
peaceable and best neighbours." — Rawdon Papers^ p. 199. 

NOTE AA. 

The first work to which Taylor alludes is " St. Chrysostom's Golden 
Book for the Education of Children, out of the Greeke," 1659. 12mo. 
The other work alluded to must have been in MS., since I cannot find 
that Evelyn ever published any account of his travels. The authors 
of the Biograhia Britannica (vol. v. p. 610,) say, "It is much to be re- 
gretted that a work so entertaining as the history of his travels would 
have been, appeared, even to so indefatigable a person as he was, a task 
too laborious for him to undertake : for we should there have seen 
clearly, and in a true light, many things in reference to Italy which are 
now very indistinctly and partially represented ; and we should have 
also met with much new matter never touched before, and of which we 
shall now, probably, never hear at all," 

NOTE BB. 

This was Thomas Piers, or Pierse, first fellow of Magdalen, after- 
wards rector of Brington, in Northamptonshire, the president of his 
own College, and lastly dean of Salisbury. He is described by Wood 
as " a person well read in authors, whether civil or prophane, of a florid 
style, a zealous son of the church of England, though originally a Cal- 
vinist ; but, above all, a most excellent preacher, whether in the Eng- 
lish or the Latin tongue." — Wood, Athen. vol. iv. p. 299. The partic- 
ular works alluded to by Taylor are, 1. "An Additional Advertisement 
of Mr. Baxter's entitled the Grotian Religion discoverrd, &c." printed 
in the same volume with " Self-Condemnation exemplified in Mr. Whit- 
field, Mr. Barlee, and Mr. Hickman ; with occasional Reflections on 
Calvin, Beza, Zuinglius, Piscator. Rivet, and Bullock ; but more espe- 
cially on Dr. W. Twisse and Mr.' T. Hobbes." Lond. 1650. quarto. 
2. " The New Discoverer discovered ; by way of Answer to Mr. Bax- 
ter his pretended Discovery of the Grotian Religion, with the several 
Subjects therein contained. Lond. 1659. quarto." Pierce seems to 
have been a pungent and caustic writer, well read in the Quinquartic- 
ular controversy, and fearless in the defence of the Church of England, 
even during her time of greatest depression. He must, however, have, 
in some degree, complied with the ruling powers, since he held hia 
living unmolested during the whole of the Civil War and the Usur- 
pation. 

NOTE CC. 

" Herbert Thorndyke, prebend of Westminster, and sometimes fellow 
of Trin. Coll., in Cambridge," died in July 1672. He is mentioned by 
Wood, Athen. vol. ii. p. 302 and 4. But of his literary labours I know 
nothing ; nor, from Taylor's estimate, do the seem worth much inquiry. 

NOTE DD. 

For a beautiful " Prayer, to be said by Debtors and all Persons, obliged 
whether by Crime or Contract," see the "Holy Living," voL vi. p. 177. 
It contains many expressions which prove it to have been in frequent 
use with Taylor himself, and to have been prompted by the necessities 
of his own condition. 

30* 



350 NOTES. 

NOTE EE. 

Extract from the Oliverian Minutes of the Year 1659 i 
Record Tower % Dublin Castle. 

" Dr. Taylor. 

" Ordered, 

" That Lt. Coll. Bryan Smyth, Governor of Carrickfergus, do forth- 
with upon sight hereof cause the body of Dr. Jeremiah Taylor to be 
sent up to Dublin undersafe custody, to the end he may make his per- 
sonall appearance before the said Commissioners to answer unto such 
things as shall be objected against him in behalf of the Common- 
wealth. Dated at Dublin the 11th of August 1659. 

" Signed, THO. HERBERT, Seer." 
NOTE FF. 

These troubles were the rising of Sir George Booth and the gentry 
of Cheshire and the neighbouring counties, after the death of Crom- 
well, in July 1659. The usual way between London and Ireland was thus 
rendered impassable, and the severities which were exercised on the 
loyalists after their defeat were likely to render men unwilling to become 
the bearers of any communication with a person of such known polit- 
ical principles as Jeremy Taylor. — See Hume, vol. vii. pp. 300, 301, 302. 

NOTE GG. 

The works here alluded to are, 1st. Evelyn's " Apology for the Royal 
Party, written in a Letter to a Person in the late Council of State ; with 
a Touch at the pretended Plea of the Army." London, 1659. quarto; 
and "Elysium Britannicum," a projected Treatise on Gardening, in 
three books which was never completed. — See Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. 
ii. p. 90. 

NOTE HH. 

" Here I cannot but instance two acts of the Presbyterians, by which, 
if their humour and spirit were not enough discovered and known, 
their want of ingenuity and integrity would be manifest ; and how im- 
possible it is for men, who would not be deceived, to depend on either. 
When the declaration had been delivered to the ministers, there was a 
clause in it, in which the king declared " his own constant practice of 
the Common Prayer," and that he would take it well from those who 
used it in their churches, that the common people might be again aquain- 
ted with the piety, gravity, and devotion of it, and which he thought 
would faciliate their living in a good neighbourhood together, or words ' 
to that effect. When they had considered the whole some days, Mr. 
Calamy, and some other ministers deputed by the rest, came to the 
chancellor to redeliver it into his hands. They acknowledged ' the 
king had been very gracious to them in his concessions ; though he 
had not granted all that some of their brethren wished, yet they were 
contented only desired him that ' he would prevail with the king that 
the clause mentioned before might be left out; which' — they protested, 
c was moved by them for the king's own end ; and that they might show 
their obedience to him, and resolution to do him service. For they 
were resolved themselves to do what the king wished, and first to rec- 






NOTES. 351 

oncile the people, who for near twenty year3 had not been aquainted 
with that form, by informing- them, that it contained much piety and 
devotion, and might be lawfully U3ed ; and then, that they would begin 
to use it themselves, and by degrees accustom the people to it. Which,' 
they said, { would have a better effect than if the clause were in the dec- 
laration ; for they should be thought in their persuasions to comply on- 
ly with the king's declaration, and to merit from his majesty, and not 
to be moved from the conscience of the duty : and so they should take 
that occasion to manifest their zeal to please the king. And they feared 
there would other ill consequences from it, by the waywardness of the 
common people, who were to be treated with skill, and would not be pre- 
vailed upon all at once.' The king was to be present the next morn- 
ing, to hear the declaration read the last time before both parties ; and 
then the chancellor told him , in the presence of all the rest, what the 
ministers had desired, which they again enlarged upon, with the same 
protestations of their resolutions, in such a manner that his majesty be- 
lieved they meant honestly, and the clause was left out. But the decla- 
ration was no sooner published, than observing that the people were 
generally satisfied with it, they sent their emissaries abroad ; and ma- 
ny of their letters were intercepted, and particularly a letter from Mr. 
Calamy to a leading minister in Somersetshire, whereby he advised and 
intreated him, ' that he and his friends would continue and persist in 
the use of the Directory, and by no means admit the Common Prayer 
in their churches ; for that he made no question but that they should 
prevail further with the king than he had yet consented to in his dec- 
laration. 5 " 

" The other instance was, that, as soon as the declaration was prin- 
ted, the king received a petition in the name of the ministers of Lon- 
don and many others, of the same opinion with them who had subscribed 
that petition, amongst whom none of those who had attended the king 
in those conferences had their names. They gave his majesty humble 
thanks ' for the grace he had vouchsafed to show in his declaration^ 
which they received as an earnest of his future goodness and conde- 
scension in granting all those other concessions which were absolutely 
necessary for the liberty of their conscience;' and desired, with impor- 
tunity and ill manners, ( that the wearing the surplice, and the using 
the cross in baptism, might be absolutely abolished out of the church, 
as being scandalous to all men of tender consciences.' From these two 
instances, all men may conclude that nothing but a severe execution 
of the law can prevail upon that classes of men to conform to govern- 
ment." — Clarendon's Life, pp. 75, 76. 

I certainly do not consider Clarendon's inference as an accurate one. 
The duplicity or bigotry of a few leading individuals can be no good 
argument against using all just and reasonable means to conciliate a 
numerous and powerful party, the majority of whom must be, like 
other men, to be subdued by kindness, and satisfied when their com- 
plaints are attended to. Nor is there any method so likely to destroy 
the consequence of the obnoxious individuals themselves, as a removal 
of the real or imaginary grievances which constitute the strength of 
their cause, and supply them with arm3 against the government. But 
we know how much mankind are, even in spite of themselves, deterred 
from a perservance in conciliatory measures by the unthankful manner 
in which those measures are received : nor have they, who will make no 
concessions, any right to complain that they do not obtain fresh privil- 
eges. 



352 NOTES. 

NOTE II. 

The inscription on the communion plate is as follows : 

"In Ministerium SS. Mysteriorum 
In Ecclesia Christi Redemptoris 

De Dromore. 
Deo dedit humillima Domina * 

Ancilla D. Joanna Taylor." 

Bonne y, p. 323. 

Here, it will be observed, the lady is called Joanna, without any dis- 
tinctive mark; but as Mrs. Taylor herself bore that name, she is more 
likely to have been the giver than her daughter : more particularly 
since Joanna, the daughter, had two elder sisters, and can have been 
little more than a child at this time. Mrs. Taylor was also an heiress, 
so that she may well have retained some portion of her property in her 
own hands, so as to make the present really hers. 

NOTE JJ. 

"At Michaelmas, 1662, Francis Taverner, about twenty-five years 
old, a lusty proper stout fellow, then servant at large (afterwards por- 
ter,) to the Lord Chichester, Earl of Donegal, at Belfast in the north of 
Ireland, county of Antrim, and diocese of Connor, riding late at night 
from Hilbrough homeward, near Drum Bridge, his horse, though of 
good metal, suddenly made a stand ; and he, supposing him to be taken 
with the staggers, alighted to bloud him in the moth, and presently 
mounted again. As he was setting forward, there seemed to pass by 
him two horsemen, though he could not hear the treading of their 
feet, which amazed him. Presently there appeared a third in a white 
coat, just at his elbow, in the likeness of James Haddock, formerly an 
inhabitant in Malone, where he died near five years before. Where- 
upon Taverner asked him in the name of God who he was 7 He re- 
plied, c I am James Haddock, and you may call to mind by this token : 
that about five years ago, I and two other friends were at your father's 
house, and you, by your father's appointment, brought us some nuts ; 
and therefore be not afraid,' say3 the apparition. Whereupon Tavern- 
er, remembering the circumstances, thought it might be Haddock ; and 
those two, who passed by before him, he thought to be his two friends 
with him w*hen he gave them nuts ; and courageously asked him why 
he appeared to him rather than any other. He answered, because he 
was a man of more resolution than others : and if he would ride his 
way with him, he would acquaint him with a business he had to deliv- 
er him, which Taverner refused to do, and would go his own way, (for 
they were now at a quadrivial,) and so rode on homewards. But im- 
mediately on their departure there arose a great wind, and withal he 
heard very hideous screeches and noises, to his great amasement ; but 
riding forward as fast as he could, he at last heard the cocks crow to 
his comfort ; he alighted from his horse, and falling to prayer desired 
God's assistance, and so got safe home. 

"The night after there appeared again to him the likeness of James 
Haddock, and bid him go to Elenor Welch, (now the wife of Davis, 
living at Malone, but formerly the wife of the said James Haddock, by 
whom she had an onely son, to whom the said James Haddock, had 
by his will given a lease, which he held of the Lord Chichester, of which 
the son was deprived by Davis, who had married his mother,) and to 



NOTES. 353 

ask her if her maiden name was not Elenor Welch ; and if it were to 
tell her, that it was the will of her former husband, James Haddock, 
that their son should be righted in the lease. But Taverner, partly 
loath to gain the ill will of his neighbours, and partly thinking" he 
should not be credited, but looked on as deluded, long neglected to do 
his message ; till having been every night for about a month's space 
haunted with this apparition in several form3, every night more and 
more terrible, (which was usually preceded by an unusual trembling 
over his whole body, and great change of countenance manifest to his 
wife, in whose presence frequently the apparition was, though not visi- 
ible to her ;) at length he went to Malone, to Davis's wife, and askt her 
whether her maiden name was not Elenor Welch ; if it was, he had 
something to say to her. She replied, there wa3 another Elenor Welch 
besides her. Hereupon Taverner returned without delivering his mes- 
sage. The same night, being fast asleep in his bed, (for the former 
apparitions were as he sate by the fire with his wife,) by something 
pressing upon him he was awakened, and saw again the apparition of 
James Haddock in a white coat as at other times, who asked him if he 
had delivered his message? He answered, he had been there with 
Elenor Welch. Upon which, the apparition looking more pleasantly 
upon him, bid him not be afraid, and so vanished in a flash of bright- 
ness. But some nights after, (he not having delivered his message,) 
he came again, and appearing in many formidable shapes, threatened 
to tear him in pieces if he did not do it. This made him leave his 
house, where he dwelt, in the mountains, and betake himself to the 
town of Belfast, where he sate up all night at one Pierce's house, a shoe- 
maker, accompanied with the said Pierce and a servant or two of the 
Lord Chichester, who were desirous to hear or see the spirit. About 
midnight, as they were all by the fire-side, they beheld Taverner' s 
countenance to change, and a trembling to fall on him, whom presently 
e3pyed the apparitiom in a room opposite to him where he sate, and 
took up the candle and went to it, and resolutely asked him in the name 
of God wherefore it haunted him ? It replied, because he had not de- 
livered the message, and withal threatened to tear him in pieces if he 
did not do it speedily ; and so changing itself into many prodigious 
shapes, it vanisht in white like a ghost. Whereupon Francis Taverner 
became much dejected and troubled, and next day went to the Lord 
Chichester's house, and with tears in his eyes, related to some of the 
family the sadness of his condition. They told it to my Lord's chap- 
lain, Mr. James South, who came presently to Taverner, and being ac- 
quainted of his whole story, advised him to go this present time to Ma- 
lone to deliver punctually his message, and promised to go along with 
him. But first they went to Dr. Lewis Downs, then minister of Belfast, 
who, upon hearing the relation of the whole matter, doubted at first 
the truth of it, attributing it rather to melancholy than any thing of 
reality. But being afterwards fully satisfied of it, the only scruple re- 
maining was, whether it might be lawful to go on such a business, not 
knowing whose errand it was ; since, though it was a real apparition of 
some spirit, yet it it was questionable whether of a good or a bad spirit. 
Yet the justice of the cause, (it being the common report the youth 
was wronged,) and other considerations prevailing, he went with 
them. So they three went to Davis's house, where the woman being 
desired to come to them, Taverner did effectually do his message, by 
telling her, that he could not be at quiet for the ghost of her former 
husband James Haddock, who threatened to tear him in pieces if he 
did not tell her she must right John Haddock, her son by him, in a 
lease wherein she and Davis, her now husband, had wronged him. 



354 NOTES. 

This done, he presently found great quietness in his mind ; and, thank* 
ing the gentlemen for their company, advice, and assistance, he depart- 
ed thence to his brother's house at Drum Bridge; where, about two 
nights after, the aforesaid apparition came to him again, and, more 
pleasantly than formerly, askt if he had delivered his message ? He 
answered, he had done it fully. It replied, that he must do the mes- 
sage to the executors also, that the business might be perfected. At 
this meeting, Taverner asked the spirit if Davis would do him any 
hurt ; to which it answered at first somewhat doubtfully ; but at length 
threatened Davis if he attempted any thing to the injury of Taverner, 
and so vanisht away in white. 

"The day following, Dr. Jeremie Taylor, Bishop of Down, Connor, 
and Dromore, was to go to keep court at Dromore, and commanded 
me, who was then secretary to him, to write for Taverner to meet him 
there, which he did. And there, in the presence of many, he examin- 
ined Taverner strictly in this strange scene of Providence, as my Lord 
stil'd it; and by the account given him, both by Taverner, and others 
who knew Taverner, and much of the former particulars, his Lordship 
was satisfied that the apparition was true and real ; but said no more 
there to him, because at Hilbrough, three miles from thence on his way 
home, my Lord was informed that my Lady Conway and other persons 
of quality were coming purposely to hear his Lordship examine the 
matter. So Taverner went with us to Hilbrough ; and there, to satisfy 
the curiosity of the fresh company, after asking many things anew, 
and some over again, my Lord advised him, the next time the spirit 
appeared, to ask him these questions : " Whence are you ? Are you a 
good or a bad spirit 1 Where is your abode 7 What station do you 
hold? How are you regimented in the other world? And what is the 
reason that you appear for the relief of your son in so small a matter, 
when so many widows, and orphans are oppressed in the world, being 
defrauded of greater matters, and none from thence of their relations 
appear, as you do, to right them V 

11 That night Tavernet was sent for to Lisburne, to my Lord Conway's, 
three miles from Hilbrough, on his way home to Belfast, where he was 
again strictly examined in the presence of many good men and women 
of the aforesaid matter, who was ordered to lie at my Lord Conway's all 
night ; and about nine or ten o'clock at night, standing by the fire-side 
with his brother and many others, his countenance changed, and he fell 
into a trembling, the usual prognostic of the apparition ; and being loath 
to make any disturbance in his lordship's house, he and his brother went 
out into the court, where he saw the spirit coming over the wall ; which 
approaching nearer, askt him if he had done his message to the execu- 
tors also ? He replied] he had, and wondered it should still haunt him. 
It replied he need not fear, for it would do'him no hurt, nor trouble him 
any more, but the executors, if he did not see the boy righted. Here 
his brother put him in mind to ask the spirit what the bishop bid him, 
which he did presently. But it gave him no answer, but crawled on its 
hands and feet over the wall again, and so vanisht in white, with a most 
melodious harmony. 

" Note (1) That Pierce at whose house, and in whose presence the 
apparition was. being askt whether he saw the spirit said he did not, but 
thought at that time he had a mist all over his eyes. (2) What was then 
spoke to Taverner was in so low and hollow a voice, that they could not 
understand what it said. (3) At Pierce's house it stood just in the entry 
of a door, and as amaid passed by to go in atthe door, Taverner saw it go 
aside and give way to the maid, though she saw it not. (4) That the lease 
was hereupon disposed to the boy's use. (5) The spirit at the last ap- 



NOTES. 355 

pear lag" at my Lord Conway's house, revealed somewhat to Taverner, 
which he would not discover to any of us that askt him. 

"This Taverner, with all the persons and places mentioned in the sto- 
ry, I knew very well, 'and all good and wise men did believe it, especially 
the bishop, and dean of Connor, Dr. Rust. 

"Witness your humble servant, 

"THOMAS ALCOCK." 

"David Hunter, neat-herd, at the bishop's house at Portmore ; there 
appeared to him one night, carrying a log of wood into the diary, an old 
woman, which amazed him, for he knew her not ; but the fright made 
him throw away his log of wood, and run into the house. The next 
night she appeared again to him, and he could not chuse but follow her 
all night, and so almost every night for near three quarters of a year. 
Whenever she came, he must go with her through the woods at a good 
round rate, and the poor fellow looked as if he was bewitched, and trav.- 
elled off his legs. And when in bed with his wife, if she appeared, hs 
must rise and go. And because his wife could not hold him in his bed 3 
she would go too, and walk after him till day, though she see nothing. 
But his little dog was so well acquinted with the apparition, that he 
would follow her as well as his master. If a tree stood in her walk, he 
observed her always to go through it. In all this while she spoke 
not. 

" But one day the said David going over a hedge into the high-way, 
she came just against him : and he cryed out, f Lord bless me ! would 
I was dead ; shall I never be delivered from this misery V At which — 
1 And the Lord bless me too,' says she ; ( It was very happy you spake 
first, for till then I had no power to speak, though I have followed you 
so long.' — c My name,' says she, c is Margaret I lived here be- 

fore the war, and had one son by my husband. When he died I mar- 
ried a soldier, by whom I had several children, which that former son 
maintained, else we must have all starved. He lives beyond the Baun 
Water ; pray go to him, and bid him dig under such a hearth, and there 
he shall find 2Ss. Let him pay what I owe in such a place, and the rest 
to the charge unpaid at my funeral ; and go to my son that lives here, 
which I had by my latter husband, and tell him that he lives a wicked 
and a dissolute life, and is very unnatnral and ungrateful to his brother 
that maintained him ; and if he does not mend his life, God Almighty 
will destroy him.' 

" David Hunter told her, he never knew her. " No,' says she ; ( I 
died seven years before you came into the country.' But for all that, if 
he would do her message, she should never hurt him. But he deferred 
doing a3 the apparition bid him ; and she appeared the night after as 
he lay in bed, and struck him on the shoulder very hard ; at which he 
cryed out, and asked if she did not promise she would not hurt him. 
She said, that was if he did her message : if not she would kill him. He 
told her he could not go now, by reason the waters were out. She said 
she was content he should stay till they were abated : hut charged him 
afterwards not to fail her. So he did her errand, and afterwards she 
appeared and gave him thanks. { For now,' said she, ' I shall be at rest : 
therefore pray you lift me up from the ground, and I will trouble you no 
more. 3 So David Hunter lifted her up from the gronnd, and as he said, 
she felt just like a bag of feathers in his arms. So she vanished, and 
he heard most delicate musick as she went off, over his head ; and he 
was never more troubled. 

"This account the poor fellow gave us every day as the apparition 



356 NOTES. 

spoke to him : and my Lady Conway came to Portmore, where she as- 
ked the fellow the same questions, and many more. This I know to be 
true, being- all the while with my Lord of Downe, and the fellow but a 
poor neat-herd there. 

"THOMAS ALCOCK." 

Glanvill's Sadducismus Triumphatus ; edited by 
More. Lond. 1682. pp. 243—253. 

" I cannot but animadvert upon what is here expressed concerning 
the questions which the bishop would needs have propounded to and 
resolved by this spectre. I am persuaded that the apostle Paul, who 
speaks of man's intruding into those things which he hath not seen, Col. 
ii. 18, would hardly have given such counsel as the bishop did. One of 
his questions, (viz. Are you a good or a bad spirit 1) seems to be a need- 
less and impertinent inquiry ; for good angels never appear in the 
shape of dead men, but evil and wicked spirits have oftentimes done so. 
His other queries savour too much of vain curiosity : they bring to 
mind what is by that great historian Thuanus, (lib. 130, p. 1136,) re- 
ported concerning Peter Cotton, the Jesuit ; who, having a great desire 
to be satisfied about some questions which no man living could resolve 
him in, he applied himself to a maid who was possessed with a devil, 
charging the spirit in her to resolve his proposals. Some of which were 
of this world ; e. g. he desired the devil, if he could, to tell him when 
Calvinism would be extinguished ; and what would be the most effec- 
tual means to turn the kingdom of England from the Protestant to the 
Popish religion 7 What would be the issue of the wars and great de- 
signs then on foot in the world 7 — Other of his inquiries respected the 
old world ; e. g. How Noah could take the living creatures that were 
brought into the ark 7 Who those sons of God were that loved the 
daughters of men 7 Whether serpents went upon feet before Adam's 
fall 7 &c. Some of his questions respected the other world. He would 
have the spirit resolve him, How long the fallen angels were in heaven 
before they were cast out from thence 7 And what is the most evident 
place in the Scripture to prove that there is a purgatory 7 Who are 
the seven spirits that stand before the throne of God 7 Who is the 
king of the archangels 7 Where Paradise is 7 Now let the reader 
judge whether Dr. Taylor's questions, when he would have the spirit 
resolve him, Where is your abode 7 What station do you hold 7 How 
are you regimented in the other world 7 &c. be not as curious as some 
of the Jesuit's. Wise men thought it tended much to the disreputation 
of Peter Cotton ; when, through his incognitant leaving the book 
wherein his inquiries of the dsemon were written, with a friend, the 
matter came to be divulged. I cannot think that Dr. Taylor's secreta- 
ry, his publishing these curiosities of his Lord, hath added much to 
his credit among sound and judicious persons. There is a tragical 
passage related in the story of the dsemon, which for three months mo- 
lested the house of Mr. Perreaud, a Protestant minister in Matiscon. 
One in the room would needs be propounding needless questions for the 
devil to answer, though Mr. Perreaud told him of the danger in it. 
After a deal of discourse, the devil said unto him, ' You should have 
hearkened to the minister's good counsel, who told you, that you ought 
not to ask curious questions of the devil ; yet you would do it, and now 
I must school you for your pains,' Presently upon which the man was, 
by an invisible hand, plucked up by his thumb, and twirled round and 
thrown upon the floor, and so continued in most grievous misery. I 
hope, then, that none will be emboldened from the bishop's advice, to 



NOTES. 357 

inquire at the mouth of devils, or of apparitions, until such time as 
they know whether they are devils or no." — Increase Mather's Di- 
ary for the Recording of Illustrious Providences. 12mo. Boston, 1684. 
pp. 223—229. 

Mather does not seem to have perceived (indeed, if he had, it would 
not have diminished his displeasure,) the drift and object of that sort of 
cross-examination to which Taylor wished to subject the apparition, nor 
that it was intended merely to perplex and expose the person who, as 
he suspected, played the part of spectre. It is singular that the prac- 
tice, so usual with the Romish exorcists, of asking- strange and curious 
questions of exorcised persons, " cunningly to get out of the devil, the 
confession of some article of faith, for the edification of the standers 
by, 55 — is exposed by Taylor himself, in one of his controversial works, 
in a strain of powerful satire, which will well repay the reader who 
may refer to it. Mather, who was a steady and most intolerant believer 
in the reality of such visitations, and who trusted in exorcisms as im- 
plicitly as Peter Cotton, the Jesuit, provided only those exorcisms were 
after the model of the directory, and uttered by a minister in a black 
cloak instead of a cope and surplice,) would have thought his wit, in- 
deed, grievously out of place ; but even Mather himself would have 
had some difficulty in answering satisfactorily the decision with which 
he winds up his pleasantries. 

" The casting out of devils is a miraculous power, and given at first 
for the confirmation of Christian faith, as the gifts of tongues and heal- 
ing were ; and therefore, we have reason to believe, that because it is 
not an ordinary power, the ordinary exorcisms cast out no more devils 
than extreme unction cures sicknesses. We do not envy to any one 
any grace of God, but wish it were more modestly pretended, unless it 
could be more evidently proved. Origen condemned this whole proce- 
dure of conjuring devils long since : and St. Chrysostom spake soberly 
and truly, We poor wretches cannot drive away the flies, much less 
devils." — Dissuasive from Popery, vol. x. pp. 237 — 238. 

NOTE KK, 

That his health was broken appears by the anxiety expressed by Lord 
Conway, (who was a steady believer in the wonderful cures effected by 
Valentine Greatraiks,) that this singular person should be admitted to 
operate upon him. "I had a letter also from my brother Francis. I 
am confident Mr. Greatrix would recover him or the Bishop of Down^ 
for I do pretty well know what distempers he can cure, and what he 
cannot cure." — Rawdon Papers, p. 214. Of Mr. Greatraiks and his 
miracles, a strange account is given in a letter from Taylor's friend, 
Dean Rust, to the learned and pious, but superstitious Glanvill; Sad~ 
ducismus Triumphatus, pp. 81 — 83. See also Henry More's Schoila 
on sect. 58. of his Enthusiasmus Triumphatus, any " A brief Account 
of Mr. Valentine Greatraiks, and divers of the strange Cures by him 
lately performed, in a letter addressed to the Hon. Boyle." London, 
1666. The strangest part of the story is the good character and good 
sense of Greatraiks, who seems to have given no symptoms either of 
enthusiasm or imposture, and who, though he demanded 155/. for his 
journey into England, to try his powers on the Lady Conway, (Raw- 
don Papers, p. 207,) in general accepted no reward for the benefits 
which he conferred. After all, in an age of metallic tractors and ani- 
mal magnestism, we have no right to wonder at the credulity of our 
grandfathers and grandmothers. 
31 



358 NOTES. 



NOTE LL. 



It is my duty to acknowledge that this part of Lady Wray's state- 
ment is clogged with many difficulties, not unlikely to occur in the 
narrative of a person, who, at an advanced age, gives details of events 
which happened before she was born, but which prevent our receiving 
all the circumstances which she relates with unhesitating assent. Thus 
she calls the officer who was killed in a duel, " her uncle Edward ;" 
and says, that the duel took place at " Oxford." But if a duel so re- 
markable had occurred at Oxford, it is almost certain that Anthony 
Wood would have taken some notice of it. And, further, it appears 
from the Register, that Edward Taylor, son of the bishop, was buried 
not at Oxford, but at Lisburn, in March, 1661, — too soon to make it 
probable that he could have attained the rank of captain in the guards, 
inasmuch as, at that time, the government were rather occupied in dis- 
banding the old army than in raising or new-modelling another. It is, 
therefore, most reasonable to apprehend that she had confounded names 
and dates, and given an erroneous version of a story which might be 
true in the main, though it neither happened at the place nor to the 
person whom she supposed. A similar mistake occurs in her account 
of her uncle Charles, whom she asserts to have taken a master's degree 
in the University of Dublin. This, I have ascertained, he certainly 
never did. But, though I cannot place implicit confidence in the cir- 
cumstances of her story, I cannot think myself justified in withholding 
all credence from it, since it is, after all, as good authority as can gen- 
erally be expected in cases of family tradition. 

NOTE MM. 

" Feb. 24, 1680. To the Royal Society, where I met an Irish bishop 
and his lady, who was daughter to my worthy and pious friend, Dr. 
Jeremy Taylor, late Bishop of Down and Connor. They came to see 
the Repository ; she seemed to be a knowing woman, beyond the ordi- 
nary talent of her sex." — Evelyn Memoirs^ vol. i. p. 217. 

NOTE NN. 

The son of archbishop Marsh, by Mary Taylor, was afterwards dean 
of Down ; but I have been able to discover nothing more concerning 1 
him, except that he also had a son who left five children ; 1. Francis, 
still living, and father of a numerous family, who is in possession of 
bishop Taylor's watch, given him by king Charles ; 2. Robert, in holy 
orders, and living in 1817; 3. Digby, also in orders, and fellow of 
Trinity College, Dublin, who died August 12, 1791 ; 4. Jeremy, also 
deceased, who had the original of the picture whence Mr. Bonney's 
print is taken ; and 5. a daughter, married to Mr. Simon Digby, and 
living in 1817. 

Of Digby, the third son, the following character appeared at the 
time of his death, in the public papers. For it, as well as the preced- 
ing particulars concerning the Marsh family, I am indebted to Mr. 
Bonney's MS. Dr. Marsh, I can believe to have been not unworthy of 
such an ancestor as Jeremy Taylor, though, probably, he himself, and, 
certainly, his great-great-grandfather would have been surprised at 
some of those peculiar flowers of eloquence which distinguish the eulo- 
gium before us. 

"On Friday last, (August 12, 1791,) died at his chambers in the Col- 
lege, (Dublin,) of a severe indisposition, which he bore with becoming 



NOTES. 359 

fortitude and resignation, the Rev. Digby Marsh, D.D., senior fellow 
of Trinity College, professor of modern history, register [registrar] of 
the university, and member of the Royal Irish Academy. 

" Whether we consider the elevation of his mind, the strength of his 
talents, or the number of his virtues, we cannot hesitate to pronounce 
him among the first characters of which the university, or, perhaps, 
the nation, could boast. 

"Calm, deliberate, and reserved — his calmness was fortitude, his 
deliberation wisdom, his reserve modesty. 

" That magnanimity which raised him above the reach of passion, 
gave to every action of his life decision and intrepidity ; and, whilst he 
seemed slow in deciding, he was retarded not by the dulness of con- 
ception, but by the range of his sagacity and the comprehension of hi3 
views. 

" The austerity of hi3 deportment, the effect not of pride, but of con- 
stitution, was softened into affability by a native gentleness and benev- 
olence which could not be disguised ; and through a severity of man- 
ner, perhaps not ill-suited to the serious dignity of his mind, beamed 
the mildest effusions of a generous and feeling heart. 

" His affections were not easily excited ; but they were strong, steady, 
and permanent ; and whilst he scorned to make professions of regard 
his actions proved him a sincere and disinterested friend. 

" Noble and elevated in his sentiments, he has left behind him a 
character unsullied by a single mean or dishonourable act. 

"Nor, indeed, was it possible that a man, the independence of whose 
virtue rested upon itself, and, far from courting, rather shunned ap- 
plause, could have deviated from the strict path which honour and con- 
science prescribe. Endowed with singular powers of understanding, 
he sought not their display. 

"His genius was too proud to stoop to fame ! too modest to hope for 
it. But the gratitude of that place, which has been enriched by his 
talents and improved by his virtues, will pay to his memory that tribute 
of admiration and praise, which the diffidence that ever attends real 
abilities would have prevented him from accepting in his life. 

" The governors of Trinity College unaminously resolved, that the 
late much-lamented Dr. Marsh should be interred in the College Chap- 
el, with all academical honours, and with every mark of respect that 
could testify their just sense of his superior merit. But Dr. Marsh's 
family declined the offer, with many expressions of thankfulness for the 
honour intended their relation, whom they rather choose should be 
buried privately in their own family vault." 

Of Joanna Taylor, and her descendants, the following account is ta- 
ken from Mr. Todd Jones's MSS. and information furnished by his sur- 
viving sisters. Joanna, it will be recollected, was married to Edward 
Harrison, of Maralave, esquire, member of parliament for Lisburn. 
By him she had four sons and two daughters: 1. Michael Harrison, 
muster- master-general of Ireland, and master of the staple in that 
kingdom, which he inherited from his grandfather, to whom it was 
granted by Charles the Second. The illuminated patent is yet in the 
possession of the family, but its privileges were taken away in the 12th 
year of king William. He represented Belfast in the Irish parliament, 
and died young without issue. 2. Jeremiah Taylor Harrison, commis- 
sary-general of Ireland, and member of parliament for Knocktopher. 
Of all the grandchildren of bishop Taylor, thi3 his namesake was ac- 
counted to bear the strongest resemblance to him in person, countenance, 
and disposition ; but, being a Whig, he has fallen under the lash of 
Swift in the " Legion Club." It is, perhaps singular that Taylor's de- 



360 NOTES. 

scendants should have been Whigs ; but still more so that the one who 
most resembled him should be so handed down to posterity by the pen 
of a malicious satirist. 

"There sit Clements, Dilkes, and Harrison; 
How they swagger from their garrison ; 
Such a triplet could you tell 
Where to find on this side hell 1 
Harrison, and Dilkes, and Clements, 
Keeper, see they have their payments ! 
Every mischiefs in their hearts ; 
If they fail, ' tis want of parts ! " 

He married Mary, daughter of the secretary Vernon, and sister to 
the admiral of the same name, and died at Brook Hill, near Lisburn, 
also without issue. 3. Francis Harrison, representative for the County 
of Carlow, who inhabited the property of both his brothers, which he 
largely increased by an advantegeous purchase from the crown of the 
estates of Castlemartin, forfeited by Sir Maurice Eustace, late lord 
chancellor of Ireland, under king James. In 1724 he became a part- 
ner in a banking-house at Dublin, then esteemed the most flourishing 
in the British islands. In 1729, however, Mr. Harrison died suddenly, 
intestate, and with the whole of his property unsetteled : the affairs of 
the bank became greatly involved, and a burden, for which he was ex- 
tremely ill fitted, devolved, on, 4. his youngest brother, Marsh Harrison, 
captain in the army, a weak and dissipated man, who died soon after, 
a victim to various excesses. The bank failed, and a great part of the 
Harrison estates were involved in the ruin. A considerable surplus, 
however, remained to, 5. Mar/, the survivor of the whole family ; mar- 
ried, first, to colonel Francis Columbine, by whom she had two daugh- 
ters ; Francis, married to William Todd, esq., and Harrison, married to 
Sir Christopher Hales, of Lincolnshire. After Colonel Columbine's 
death, his widow again married Sir Cecil Wray, of Summer Castle and 
Brampstone, in Lincolnshire. By him she had another daughter Albi- 
na Casey, who, in 1730, married lord Vere Bertie, second son of Robert, 
duke of Ancaster. — 6. The sixth of bishop Taylor's grandchildren was 
Anne, who married colonel John Pacey, secretary, to the duke of Or- 
mond, and died without children. 

Lady Wray, whose letter to her son-in-law has been so frequently quo- 
ted, gave up, during her life-time, to her daughter Frances Todd, the 
greater part of the Irish property. The children of the above Frances 
and william Todd were, 1. Frances, married to Philip Boyer, esq. 2. 
Joanna, widow to Major Hunt of the 12th dragoons, still living in 1819. 
and, at the age of ninety-five, in possession of all her faculties. 3. Mary 
Wray, married to Conway Jones, M. D., by whom she had, 1. William 
Todd Jones, of Homra, esq., representative for the borough of Lisburn, 
who died unmarried, at Rosstrevor, February 14, 1818, aged 63, in con- 
sequence of the overturn of a carriage. Of his distinguished talents, 
and his intention, during the latter years of his life, to undertake that 
task which I have imperfectly accomplished, I have already had occa- 
sion to take notice, as well as of the unfortunate fate which attended 
those family documents which, had they remained in his hands, might 
have furnished from bishop Taylor's own pen, the best picture of his 
private character and history. 2. Edward Jones, esq., solicitor-general 
to the state of North Caroliona, where he is now living, married, and 
with a numerous family. 3. Frances, married to Joseph Pollock, esq., 
by whom she had several children, 4. Mary, living unmarried. 5. 
Anne, married to lieut.-colonel John deBerniere, 18th regiment of foot ; 



NOTES. 



361 



has a large family, and resides with a married daughter, near Charles- 
ton, in South Carolina. 5. Charlotte, widow of lieut. -colonel Henry 
Wray, of the Bengal establishment. 6. Catherine, married Robert Pe- 
pes Ormsby, esq., and died without issue in 1805. 

Besides the above, I have met with several families in England and 
Ireland^ who claim the honour of being descended from Jeremy Taylor. 
The families of French, Storey, and Sneyd, of the counties of Kildare 
and Cavan, are said to be connected with his line, through hi3 daughter 
Mary ; and a similar claim was advanced by the late rev. Mr. Keate, 
rector of Laverton, in Somersetshire, father of the rev. Dr. Keate of 
Eton, on behalf of his mother, who was a Lacey, and who is said to have 
preserved, with reverential care, a copy of the Tviavrog, which had 
been a present from the author to her father, who was, as she under- 
stood, his grandson. His grandsons, however, Jeremy Taylor, appar- 
ently, never saw, certainly not at such an age as would enable them to 
appreciate his presents. Nor had he any grandson of the name of 
Lacey. A great-grandson of that name he may have had, since the ac- 
counts of the Marsh family are so imperfect, and a family tradition of 
this kind is authority by no means to be despised : since, however in- 
accurate in some of its details, it must, in all probability, have had a 
foundation in truth. But the above tradition seems the only ground for 
such a belief; at least I have been able to trace no other. A letter on 
the subject was written by Mr. Keate, to the rev. Edward Jones, rector 
of Uppingham, who communicated it to Mr. Bonney, and I have myself 
made several inquires of the late Thomas Keate, esq., of Chelsea Hos- 
pital, but without obtaining any additional information. 

NOTE 00. 

The watch has been described as being " plain, and having only a 
single case, with a gold dial-plate, the figures of which are raised. The 
hands are of steel, and the maker's name is c Jacobus Markwich, Lon- 
dini.' Originally it had no chain, but went by means of catgut. Bish- 
op Taylor caused a second case of copper to be made for it, covered 
with green velvet, and studded with gold. At the bottom, the studs are 
so arranged as to represent a mitre, surrounded by this motto, * Nescitis 
horam. 5 " — Bonney, p. 368. 

NOTE PP. 

" Case of Lord Conway, Jeremy, Bishop of Down, and Moses Hill, Esq. 

"Monday, March 19, 1665-6. 

" In answer to the petition of Moses Hill, e3q., it is admitted, that the 
lands of Castlereagh, formerly belonging to Francis Hill, esq., who, by 
fine and other conveyance, did settle them on Randal, brother to the 
said Francis Hill, and the heirs male of his body, and, for default of 
such issue, on Edward Hill, the defendant's younger brother, and the 
heirs male of his body, and for default of such issue, and Arthur Hill, 
the defendant's father, and the heirs male of his body, who afterwards 
settled the same on the defendant, subject notwithstanding, and liable 
to the lease made to the petitioner for seven years, to commence from 
the death of the said Arthur Hill. 

" A3 to the bishop of Down's receiving his chief rent, due to him, 
out of part of the premises, the same was done by him in his politick 
capacity, and in right of his bishoprick, and was not any waver of his- 
31* 



362 NOTES* 

possession that he had of the said lands, as one of the said lessees 
thereof." 

" The House agree with the paper." 

"Saturday, April 14, 1666. 

" Whereas, by order of this House, bearing* date the 12th day of this 
instant April, the cause between the lord viscount Conway, and the lord 
bishop of Down, members of this House, and Moses Hill, esq., a mem- 
ber of the House of Commons, was this day appointed to be heard, and 
the time being so far elapsed, that this House could not now proceed to 
the hearing* thereof; it is ordered, that the rents of the lands of Castle- 
reagh, in the country of Down, and other lands now in question, and re- 
lated to in the petition annexed, be sequestered and retained in the hand3 
of the particular ter-tenants, until the further order of this House ; and 
that the said rents be, and are hereby sequestered accordingly, and the 
Sheriff of the said county of Down is hereby required to see this order 
put in execution." — Journals of the Irish House of Lords, vol. i. p. 409. 

This contest, in it3 progress, brought on a misunderstanding be- 
tween the two Houses of Parliament, in which the Commons claimed 
the right of .sitting at the conference. (Journals, vol. i. p. 442.) This, 
on a reference to the lord-lieutenant, was disallowed. It does not ap- 
pear what became of the bishop's cause. It probably was not settled 
when the parliament was dissolved. 'The bishop of Down appears to 
have been on various committees of the Lords. He, however, is men- 
tioned two or three times as having obtained leave of absence. — For my 
knowledge of most of the particulars, I have to thank the hon. and rev. 
J. C. Talbot, and the rev. the Provost of Trinity College, Dublin. 

NOTE QQ. 

A frightful story of this kind is told of Edward I. of England. I 
wish it may be only the slander of enemies, whom he had grievously 
injured, and who were not unlikely to propagate, or believe, any evil 
of him. 

" And when he to the death was near, 

The folk that at Kyldrumy were, 

Come with prisoners that they had tane ; 

And syne to the King are gane, 

And, for to comfort him, they tauld, 

How they the castell to them yauld ; 

And how they till his will were brought 

To do of that whatever he thought ; 

And asked, "what men should of them do 7" — 

Then look'd he angrily them to, 

And said, grinning, "Hang and draw;" — 

That was wonder of sic saw, 

That he, that to the death was near, 

Should answer upon sic maner, 

Forouten moaning, and mercy e. — 

How might he trust on Him to cry 

That dooms soothfastly all things, 

To have mercye for his cryings, 

Of him that, through his felonie, 

Into sic point had no mercye 7" — Bahboue. 



NOTES. 363 

NOTE RR. 

Taylor's appetite for the marvellous may seem to have been sufficient- 
ly indiscriminate, when, in the same sentence, he refers, without the 
least apparent hesitation, to two such monstrous stories as those of the 
Egyptian Thebes, with its houses of alabaster, spotted with gold, and 
the city of Q,uinsay, with fourscore' millions of inhabitants. It seems, 
however, to have been the common practice of writers in his time to 
assume as facts, for the purposes of argument, any thing* which suited 
their turn, and for which a single authority could be given. I know 
scarcely any instance in which they have appeared to distinguish be- 
tween the weight of different testimonies, or to make any difference in 
their manner of citting circumstances alleged by writers of different 
ages. If a fact were found recorded in any ancient historian, they re- 
ceived it without question, how small soever the means of acquiring 
information which that historian may have possessed, or however greafc 
the internal evidence of his credulity or mendacity* In the present in- 
stance it never seems to have occurred to Taylor, either that the cir- 
cumstances related by Clemens and Pomponius Mela were, in them- 
selves, impossible ; or that both these writers were too modern to be 
much better acquainted with the antiquities of Thebes than we ourselvea 
are. Nor did he apparently suspect, what is in all probability the case, 
a numerical error of Marco Polo's pen, or the pen of his editor, in the 
monstrous computation which he has given of the burghers of a single 
city. For millions^ it is plain we should read myriads^ in which case 
the calculation will be perfectly sober and probable. 

NOTE SS. 

" Two form3 inseparable in unity 

Hath Yamen ; even as with hope or fear 

The soul regardeth him, doth he appear. 

For hope and fear, 
At that dread hour, from ominous conscience spring, 
And err not in their bodings. — Therefore some 
(They who polluted with offences come,) 

Behold him as the king 
Of terrors, black of aspect, red of eye, 
Reflecting back upon the sinful mind, 
Heightened with vengeance and with wrath divine, 

Its own inborn deformity. 
But to the righteous spirit how benign 

His awful countenance, 
Where, tempering justice with parental love, 

Goodness and heavenly grace, 
And sweetest mercy shine ! Yet is he still 
Himself the same, one form, one face, one will, 
And these his twofold aspects are but one ; 

And change is none 
In him, for change in Yamen could not be :— 

The Immutable is he !" — 

Curse of Kehama, Canto xxiii. 

NOTE TT. 

" He [Henry More] had one heroine pupil. The lady Conway, form- 
erly Mrs. Anne Finch, was of incomparable parts and endowments, 



364 , NOTES. 

(there seems indeed a very great mixture of nobleness and ingenuity in 
the name and blood at this day). Between this excellent person and 
the doctor, there was, from first to last, a very high friendship. He 
gives a character of her in an epistle dedicatory, before his " Antidote 
against Atheism." And I have heard him say, that he scarce ever met 
with any person, man or woman, of better natural parts than the lady 
Conway. She was mistress, as I must express it, of the highest theo- 
ries, whether of philosophy or religion ; and had, on all accounts, an 
extraordinary value and respect for the doctor." — " And as she always 
wrote a very clear style, so could she argue sometimes, or put to him 
the deepest and noblest queries imaginable. 

" This incomparable person (as he was wont to call her) had the mis- 
fortune to be exercised from her very youth, with great pains and dis- 
orders in her head. Few have been afflicted in so severe and durable 
a manner as herself was ; which yet she bore with admirable Christian 
patience and piety. Though it is not improbable but these so terrible 
fits, which oppressed and clouded her so much, might dispose her, by 
degrees, to a greater inclinableness towards some persons, than her 
own free reason and entire value for the doctor would otherwise have 
permitted, which yet he imputed to the height of her virtue, and said, 
c It was the greatness of her mind that betrayed her to it : who, looking 
upon some pretensions of the Quakers to be very excellent, (and these 
imposing upon her judgment,) all the external considerations of her 
quality, and the world, availed nothing with her, for the hindering of 
those regards which she shewed towards them. 5 " — Life of Dr. H. More, 
by R. Ward. Lond. 1710, p. 192. 

See also the character of this lady, published under the name of Van 
Helmont, but written by More, p. 203, of the same work. 

The notices which follow, are from the correspondence of the lady's 
husband. — There are some among them which, with all our pity for 
the poor devout sufferer, will almost excite a smile. 

We have had thoughts oftentimes in my wife's sickness, — perhaps 
she may be breeding ; but the excessive increase of her distemper, 
with many other reasons, so interrupted it, that they served only to tor- 
ment." — She hears that my Lord Chichester's former lady had got an 
eagle's stone^ esteemed of great virtue in hard labour." — "Mr. Hill 
saw the stone, and hath another, but she prefers it, if it may be had. 
I would willingly be at the charge of an express messenger, rather 
than not get it with care and speed." — " My wife had one lent unto her 
that is much bigger, for she thinks the biggest is accounted the best, 
and, in pain, wore it upon her arm a good while." — Rawdon Papers, 
pp. 191, 192, 194. 

" At Ragley I met nothing but the sad condition of my wife, whom 
I could not see all the while I was there, though I stayed a fortnight." 
P. 219. 

" My wife is ill at present. Nobody hath seen her these ten days. 
But I suppose it is much after the usual manner." P. 241. 

This sounds lamentable enough. But though the poor lady did not 
admit her husband to her apartment, she had abundance of other and 
more savoury company. 

" In my family, all the women about my wife, and most of the rest, 
are Quakers, and Monsieur Van Helmont i3 the governour of that 
flock, an unpleasing sort of people, silent, sullen, and of a reserved 
conversation." — " These and all of that society have free access to my 
wife, but, I believe Dr. More, though he was in the house all the last 
summer, did not see her above twice or thrice." Ibid. p. 254. 

Of Mr, Greatraikes, and the reliance placed in him, enough has been 



NOTES. 365 

already said, though many curious and additional circumstances may 
be found in the same interesting collection. 

NOTE UU. 

To understand the allusion of Athanasius, it is necessary to observe 
that, in Habakkuk, ii. 11, the words which we render u the beam out of 
the timber," are in the LXX. translated "the beetle out of the timber :" 
xav&aqog \x £vZov. On wnich Athanasiu3 thu3 observes, Jia rovrov 
eZnev 6 peyas nqocprjrtjg KAI KANQAB02 EK £YAOY &0E*- 
ETAI. c Ot<J«T€, ctdsXcpot, on 6 xccvdaoog Tteoi ra ctxa6ctQTa0xo?.atti t 
dxa&aqrog wr. c OvTtag xai 6 Xtjartjg Ttore \axo\actv Iv raig Zrjsroiaig. 
c Ore b*r* iv to) aravqoi iqv couo^oy^ffcv ccvrog, Za&iag tvoositzov, xai tcAtj- 
govrai iig avrov to rtoo^rsr^sv. De eo nimirumyocutus est Propheta 
Et scarbeus e ligno vocem dabit. Nostis, fratres, scarabeum ipsum im- 
mundum circa immunda negotiosum esse : ita quoque et hie latro 
negotiosus fuit in latrocinando ; in cruce tamen confitetur, et in eo ex- 
pletur quod prophetatum fuit." Athanas. cont. Omnes Hcereses. Op. 
torn. i. p. 1078. Ed. Colon. 

Bernard's exhortation against covetousnes3 is as follows : " Utinam 
in duodecim (sc. clericis) unus hodie Petrus ; unus qui reliquerit om- 
nia, unus qui loculis car eat, inveniatur. Unus, inquit [Christus,] ex 
vobis diabolus est. — A duobus itaque bolis diabolus dicitur, et Judas 
non loculum sed loculos habet." — Gaufridi Declamations ex S. Ber- 
nerdi Sermonibus Collectas. Bernard. Op. torn. ii. p. 304. Ed. Mabil- 
lone. 

NOTE VV. 

These line3 are adapted by Taylor to his purpose from two passages 
in Prudentius. In the first, the poet i3 speaking of the fall and re- 
demption of the world ; in the the second, of the plagues of Egypt. 

" Stragem sed istam non tulit 

Christus, cadentum gentium 

Impune, ne forsam sui 

Patris periret fabrica." — Cathem. Hymn. xi. 40. 

t: Q,use tandem poterit lingua retexere 

Laudes, Christe, tuas, qui domitam Pharon, 

Plagis multimodis cedere prcesuli 

Cogis Justus vindice dextera." — lb. Hymn. v. S3. 

NOTE WW. 

It is not often that Taylor borrows from contemporary writers ; yet t 
from the singularity and aptnes3 of the allusion, which was not likely 
to occur to two unconnected person, I cannot help thinking, that he has 
drawn the following passage of hi3 second Sermon on the ministerial 
duties from the Golden Remains of John Hale3, as well as the work of 
Julius Agricola. Hales died in great poverty before the Restoration. 
In hi3 Remains, published first in 1659, the same simile occurs, (p. 35,) 
in almost the same words, and the goblin labourers of whom he speaks, 
are represented at work in the vignette to the copper-plate frontispiece. 

"I remember that Agricola, in his book 'De Animalibu3 Subterra- 
neis,' tell3 of a certain kind of spirits that use to converse in mines, 
and trouble the poor labourers ; they cleanse, they cast, they melt, they 



366 NOTES. 

separate, they join the ore ; but when they are gone, the men find just 
nothing* done, not one step of their work set forward. So it is in the 
books and expositions of many men ; they study, they argue, they ex- 
pound, they confute, they reprove, they open secrets, and make new 
discoveries ; and when you turn the bottom upwards, up starts nothing ; 
no man is the wiser, no man is instructed, no truth discovered, no 
proposition cleared, nothing is altered, but that much labour and much 
time is lost ; and this is manifest in nothing more than in books of con- 
troversy, and in mystical expositions of Scripture, 'Quserunt quod 
nusquam est, inveniunt tamen.' " vol vi p. 516 

NOTE XX. 

The dedication is to the chief magistrates and senate of Hamburg, 
in which, after complimenting them on their comparatively indulgent 
treatment of the Jews, the translator proceeds as follows — 

({ Illustre tradit nobillissimus autor Sadus venerandse antiquitatis ex- 
emplum, Abrahamum patriarcham, hospitalitatis gloria celebratum, vix 
sibi felix faustumque credidisse hospitium, nisi externum aliquem, tan- 
quam aliquod presidium domi, excepisset hospitem, quern omni officio- 
rum genere coleret. Aliquando, cum hospitem domi non haberet, foris 
eum qusesiturus campestria petiit. Forte virum quemdam, senectute 
gravem, itinere fessuin, sub arbore recumbentem conspicit. 

" Q,uem comiter exceptum, domum hospitem deducit, et omni officio 
colit. Gum coenam appositam Abrahamus et famillia ejus a precibus 
auspicarentur, senex manum ad cibum protendit, nullo religionis aut 
pietatis auspicio usus. Quo viso, Abrahamus eum ita affatur : f Mi 
senex, vix decet canitiem tuam sine prsevia Numinis veneratione cibum 
sumere,' Ad quse senex ; 'Ego ignicola sum, istiusmodi morum ignarus 
nostri enim majores nullam talem me docuere pietatem.' Ad quam vo- 
ceni horrescens Abrahamus rem sibi cum ignicola profano et a sui Num- 
inis cultu alieno esse, eum e vestigio et a ccena remotum, et sui consor- 
tiipe3temet religionis hostem, domo ejicit. Sed ecce, Summus Deus 
Arahamum statim monet ; c Quid agis, Abrahame 1 Itane viro fecisse 
te docuit 1 Ego isti seni, quantumvi3 in me usque ingrato, et vitam et 
victum centum amplius annos dedi ; tu homini nee unam coenam dare, 
unumque eum momentum ferre potes V Qua Divina voce monitus, 
Abrahamus senem ex itinere revocatum domum reducit, et tantis officiis 
pietate, et ratione colit, ut suo exemplo ad veri Numinis cultum eum 
perduxerit.' 5 — G. Gentius Hlstoria Judaica, Res JudcBorum ab eversa 
JEde Hier osolym.it ana ad hcecfere Tempora usquce completes. Amstelo- 
dam. anno 1651. 

"The above work is a translation of the " Shebet Jehudah," or "Rod 
of Judah," of R. Solomon Ben Virga, for an account of whom see "Bar- 
tolocii Bibliotheca Rabbinica," p. 4. p. 575. The Sadus, from whom 
Gentius professes to have taken the story of Abraham, I once supposed 
to be Sandias Gaon, whose agnomen of " Gaon," the " Illustrious." 
agrees with the title which Gentius assigns to him. 

The kindness of Lord Teignmouth has, however, pointed out to me 
the exact narrative, not in a Jewish, but a Persian writer, the celebrated 
poet Saadi, who gives it as related to him, he does not say by whom, in 
the second book of his bostan." With the works of Saadi, Gentius was 
well acquainted, having himself published an edition of his Gulistan. 
Lord T. informs me that Saadi relates of himself, in this last work, that 
having been taken prisoner by the Franks, he was compelled to work 
with some Jews, on the fortifications of Tripoli. And he suggests, there- 
fore, that he may have possibly heard the story from them, so that it may 



NOTES. 367 

after all, have been originally derived from a Jewish source. A learned 
Jew also, Mr. J. D'Allemand, professes to have a strong- impression on 
his mind that the tradition is to be met with, in all its circumstances, in 
one of the commentaries on Gen. xviii. 1. No such commentary, how- 
ever, has been discovered : and my friend, the reverend Mr. Knatchbull 
Fellow of All Souls', whose extensive acquaintance with every branch 
of Oriental learning- makes his opinion of the highest value, agrees with 
Mr. Oxiee in giving the credit of the story to Saadi. It is remarkable, 
too, that the " Parable" does not occur in the first edition of the "Lib- 
erty of Prophesying," published in 1647, and therefore, before the 
work of Gentius appeared ; but that it is added in the second edition, 
which came out six years after the "Historica Judaica." It is there- 
fore, most probable that Taylor found the story in Gentius ; and that, 
by the common fate of those who quote at second hand, he ascribed to 
a Jew what his author had taken from a Persian. 

The following is a translation of the passage in Saadi, which appeared 
in the Asiatic Miscellany, Calcutta, 1789 ; corrected, however, in one of 
its expressions, by the same distinguished person, whose obliging assis- 
tance 1 have already acknowledged. The reader will probably, be of 
opinion that, with whomsoever the praise of originality rests, the story 
has gained considerably in spirit and terseness, in its progress through 
Gentius, Taylor, and Franklin. 

"I have heard that once, during a whole week, no traveller came to 
the hospitable dwelling of the friend of God, whose amiable nature led 
him to observe it as a rule, not to eat in the morning unless some needy 
person arrived from a journey. He went out, and turned his eyes to- 
wards every place. He viewed the valley on all sides, and, behold, in the 
desert, a solitary man resembling the willow, whose head and beard were 
whitened with the snow of age. To encourage him, he called him Friend, 
and agreeably to the manners of the munificent, gave him an invitation, 
saying, * Oh apple of mine eye, perform an act of courtesy by becoming 
my guest!' He assented, arose, and stepped forward readily, for he knew 
the kind disposition of his host, (on whom be peace !) The associates 
of Abraham's hopitable dwelling seated the old man with respe:t. The 
table was ordered to be spread, and the company placed themselves 
around. "When the assembly began to utter 'In the name of God ! 5 (or 
to say grace) and not a word was heard to proceed from the old man, 
Abraham addressed him in such words as these, — c Oh elder, stricken in 
years ! thou appearest not to me in faith and zeal like other aged ones, 
for is it' not an obligatory law to invoke, at the time of eating your daily 
meal, that divine Providence from whence it is derived V He replied, 
— ' I practice no right which I have not heard from my priest, who 
worshipeth fire. 5 The goodomened prophet, discovered this vitiated old 
man, to be a Gueber, and finding him an alien to the faith, drove him 
away in miserable plight, the polluted being rejected by those that are 
pure. A voice from the glorious and omnipotent God was heard, with 
this severe reprehension, — c Oh friend I 1 have supported him through 
a life of an hundred years, and thou hast conceived an abhorrence of 
him all at once ! If a man pay adoration to fire, shouldst thou withold 
the hand of liberality V » 

NOTE TY. 

These schoolmen are quoted by Aquinas, who, however, dissents from 
them. " Quidam dicunt quod primus homo non fuit creatus in gratia, 
sed tamen postmodum gratia fuit sibi collata antequam peccaset. Pin- 
rimse autem sanctorum auctoritates attestantur hominem in statu inno- 



368 NOTES. 

centise gratiam habuisse. Sed quod fuerit conditus in gratia, ut alii di- 
cunt, videtur requiere ipsa rectitudo prima status, in quaDeus fecit ho- 
minem fecit : secundum illud Ecclesiast. 7. Deus fecit hominem rec- 
tum." — T. Thom. Aquinat. Summa, Pars 1. Qusest. 95. Art. i. p. 180. 

NOTE ZZ. 

If Mrs. Phillips thought fit to publish his papers, Taylor desires, in a 
postscript, "that they may be consigned into the hands of my worthy 
friend Dr. Wedderburne ; for I do not only expose all my sicknesses to 
his cure, but I submit my weaknesses to his censure ; being* as confi- 
dent to find of him charity for what is pardonable as remedy for what 
is curable." — " And, as all that know him reckon him among* the best 
physicians, so I know him worthy to be reckoned among the best 
friends."— Vol. xi. p. 335. 

The person thus highly extolled by Taylor, is spoken of by Anthony 
Wood, as one of the physicians in ordinary to Charles the First, and a 
person of vast experience. He was originally a professor of philosophy 
at St. Andrew's ; " but that being too narrow a place for so great a 
person, he left it, travelled into various countries, and became so cele- 
brated for his great skill in physic, that he was the chief man of this 
country for many years for that faculty. Afterwards he received the 
tie honour of knighthood, and was highly valued when he was in Hol- 
land with the prince, in 1646-7. At length, though his infirmities and 
great age forced him to retire from public practice and business, yet 
his fame contracts all the Scotch nation to him, and his noble hospital- 
ity and kindness to all that were learned and virtuous made hia con- 
versation no less loved than his advice was desired." 

NOTE AAA. 

In stating the cases of intermarriage of kindred, Taylor appears to 
have been chiefly guided, and sometimes misled, by Grotius. He is 
wrong in supposing that very few learned men took the affirmative 
side as to the expediency and necessity of a divorce between Henry 
the Eigth and Queen Katharine. Burnet, on the 'contrary, observes, 
what is apparent from all contemporary history, that whatsoever 
King Henry's secret motives were, in the suit of his divorce, he had 
the constant tradition of the Church on his side, and that, in all ages 
and parts of it, which was carefully searched into and fully proved ; 
so that no author, older than Cardinal Cajetan, could be found to be 
Bet against such a current of tradition. 



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The Malte-Brun School Geography. — Many attempts have been 
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and inviting. 

The work exhibits not only the artificial system of Linnaeus, according 
to which the study of botany is usually pursued ; but it presents also the 
natural orders of Linnaeus and Jussieu ; and besides teaching the analy- 
sis and classification of plants, it presents many very interesting views 
of vegetable physiology. Every thing is made so plain that the book is 
of itself, abundantly sufficient for teaching the science, without the aid of 
oral explanation ; and on this account it is as happily adapted to popular 
use and to the solitary student, as it is to the use of schools ; and we do 
not hesitate to recommend it, not merely to teachers by occupation, but 
to all who wish to acquire clear ideas of this department of natural his- 
tory ; it is a work which should be in every private library as well as in 
every academy and high school. 



THE CHILD'S PICTURE DEFINING AND READING 
BOOK, by T. H. Gallaudet, late Principal of the American Asylum 
for the Deaf and Dumb. Second edition, enlarged and improved, with 
particular reference to Infant Schools, with 50 engravings. 



A Course op CALISTHENICS for Young Ladies, in Schools and 
Families, with some Remarks on Physical Education, with sixty-two 
engraved Illustrations. 1 vol. 18mo. 



691 



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